By providing a plant to treat water to drinking water quality
Herco Wassertechnik GmbH is proud to provide drinking water to 700 families in need in Peru. “Our challenge is to provide a continuous source of pure water, our most important raw material. Which is why I immediately said ‘Yes, we’re in!’ when the charity organisation described the situation on the ground to me. After all, we are specialists in water treatment and our high-quality reverse osmosis plants are used all over the world. To see that our cutting-edge technology is helping to improve the lives of many families and save lives as part of this project motivates all of us at Herco and we are very much behind it,” explains Managing Director Edwin Locker.
Helping a poverty-stricken village with water shortages in Peru
The urban centres on the Peruvian coast attract many poverty-stricken people from the Sierra (mountains) and the Selva (jungle) who are hoping for a better life. But there are massive water shortages in the area. The northern coastal region of Peru is one of the driest places on Earth. For 11 years, charity “Leben braucht Wasser e.V.” has been working on building wells to improve the living conditions of the people in Peru. Since 2016, the association has been working with its partner organisation “Sede vidas Peru”.
The groundwater is contaminated with arsenic and drinking it can be harmful
In the poor settlement of “Buenos Aires” near the village of Lambayeque, the groundwater is so contaminated with salt and arsenic that it is not fit for consumption. This meant that the charity was unable to complete the construction of an artesian well as planned in June 2020. Children, infants, unborn babies and the elderly are particularly affected by the consequences of drinking contaminated water.
Herco’s system removes hazardous substances such as arsenic from the water
Herco delivered a sand filter, a softening plant, and a reverse osmosis plant to process the well water to drinking water quality by the end of July 2021, enabling the charity project to be completed successfully. Hazardous substances such as arsenic are removed, making the water is suitable for drinking and cleaning. During the day, the plant is powered with environmentally-friendly electricity using a photovoltaic system.
Herco is also helping local children by giving them ‘Kids Water Survival Bags’
Herco Wassertechnik GmbH is going one step further in its aid and donating 1500 ‘Kids Water Survival Bags’ to the value of €10,000 in addition to the water treatment plant to the value of €60,000. Children are particularly at risk from exposure to contaminated drinking water. So Herco is keen to provide long-term support to the local children in the areas of ‘drinking and living’, ‘washing and health’ and ‘learning and playing’. Each child was given a fabric backpack, called a ‘Kids Water Survival Bag’, from Herco. This backpack contains a water bottle that can always be refilled with clean, treated water, a toothbrush, children’s toothpaste and something to write and draw with.
In the long run, the aim is to indirectly support education by providing clean water
“We hope that this backpack will have a lasting effect so that children can go to school, for example, and have enough water to drink what is sometimes a long walk there,” explains Edwin Locker, the Managing Director of Herco who is himself a father of two. The people living in the settlement are often forced to pay over-inflated prices for water and wait a long time for it. Providing clean drinking water on site shortens this gruelling and time-consuming procurement process, which gives the local children more time to go to school. When putting together the contents of the fabric backpack, care was taken to use as little plastic as possible, as littering can also be a problem locally.
A trusted partnership with the charity and other sponsors: #HercoHelps
Herco is a German B2B company which is well-known in the international water market. Herco was recommended to the charity ‘Leben braucht Wasser’ by its B2B partner Enviolet (UV treatment). This is how the first contact with Mr Heilig, the founder of the ‘Leben braucht Wasser’ charity, came about. For Herco, partnership is the basis of everything the company does, so it put its trust into the joint project. It also quickly became clear that this partnership project would need to be completed very quickly. #HercoHelps was born. Using this hashtag, Herco will report on the status of the drinking water project in Peru on LinkedIn from August 2021 onwards. True to the motto of ‘do good and make it known’.
A Swabian water technology pioneer is breaking new ground: #HercoBluePlanet
Until now, Herco has been known more as an invisible, strong and trustworthy partner in the background. Herco is respected and appreciated within domestic and international water technology circles. With this charity campaign, Herco is making a clear statement and stepping away from the modest Swabian mentality of not standing out and just getting on with things into a new digital age. Edwin Locker took over as managing director at the beginning of 2021 and has big plans for Herco when it comes to shaping the future of our blue planet. #HercoBluePlanet stands for a new vision. But the virtue of ‘sustainability’ will always be one that is quintessentially Swabian.
