Ecofiltro,
the Guatemalan invention
donated to humanity
The ecological filters are exported from Guatemala and benefit the different
communities in the world that don’t have access to purified water.
I
n the 1980’s, José Fernando Mazariegos
from Sololá presented a project to filter
water easily and economically at the
Central American Institute for Research and
Industrial Technology. Instead of patenting
it, he chose to donate it for the benefit of
humanity and that’s how the history of
Ecofiltro began.
Over time, the idea was adopted by Philip
Wilson, as a social business to make it
sustainable and in that way guarantee
providing more purified water to
Guatemala. “We have the heart of
a foundation, but the mind of a
business”, he says. “My sister gave
away 2 thousand ecofilters per year,
but at that rate, we were never going
to reach our goal of one million
families for 2020.”
access to potable water, after
we would find them discarded
However, when you give them
economic value, the families
them much more.
some time
or unused.
a symbolic
appreciate
Currently, we have reached approximately
300 thousand families, mostly in the rural
areas. The ecological filters are exported
from the Guatemalan factory to the United
States, Europe, Central America, Mexico
and Colombia.
The ecofilter is made of clay,
sawdust and colloidal silver.
Currently, the invention with
Guatemalan ingenuity is produced
in 59 factories throughout Africa,
Asia and Latin America.
40
“What surprises me is that he – José Fernando
Mazariegos – doesn’t benefit financially. We
do not distribute earnings, we reinvest it all.
We want to return something to the country”,
says Wilson. One of the important characteristics of
Ecofiltro is that everything we need to produce
them is 100% Guatemalan. “Except for the
stainless steel taps, we still haven’t found those,
but our objective is to also generate more jobs
in the country”, says the businessman.
One of the principles of Ecofiltro is not to
give the filters away; when we donated them
in some communities that did not have The social company is currently in a phase of
expansion in order to double its artisan
production capacity.
GUATEMALABEYONDEXPECTATIONS .com
www.ecofiltro.com