Nairobi has a daytime population of 7 million people, and a nighttime population of 5 million people. With this huge population also comes a huge demand for—not just water, but clean water that is safe for human consumption.
According to data from City Hall, Nairobi’s demand for clean water stood at 900 million litres a day, against an ecosystem of supply that hovers around 525 million litres, just over half the demand.
As a result, Nairobians have had to battle with frequent water rationing, with many estates receiving piped water only on designated days of the week, others once a week. The rationing experience — coupled with the aforementioned data on water demand and supply — shows just how tackling the city’s safe drinking water shortage is a matter of urgency.
But there is hope at the end of the tunnel. A Nairobi-based water technology start-up is slowly but surely revolutionising how households across the city access safe drinking water, devoid of dissolved contaminants such as fluoride, heavy metals, or excess minerals that may be present in groundwater or introduced through ageing distribution systems.
iClear has specilised in installing in-home water purification systems that use the Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology.
“When water is only available one or two days a week, people have to store it in tanks and containers for future use. Because they are sourcing water from different places, they cannot always guarantee its safety,” iClear co-founder and CEO Yanxiong Zhong said in a previous interview. “Boiling can kill bacteria and viruses, but it cannot remove salts, fluoride or other dissolved minerals. That is where reverse osmosis comes in.”
The company’s bestselling unit, according to Zhong, is priced at about KSh25,000 and targets households of three to five people, while larger systems serve offices and commercial users.
And the system is so convenient!
“We wanted clean drinking water in the house without carrying bottles all the time,” one resident using the system says. “Now we just use the system. It has simplified things for us.”
P/C — tackles sand, rust & dirt. RO — reduces salts, heavy metals & harmful bacteria. CTO — helps improve taste, odour & colour.The company that entered the Kenyan market in 2022 is headquartered at EcoBank Towers in Nairobi CBD, with a branch in Nakuru, an upcoming branch in Mombasa, and operations in Lagos, Nigeria.
Over the past four years, iClear has installed water purification systems in more than 6,000 homes across Kenya, helping families access purified drinking water directly from their taps.
