Did you know that there are 35 million students in the U.S. who are at risk of lead contamination? Even though the Lead and Copper Rule was enacted in 1991, the average age of a US public school is 44. Clean water produced at a municipal level can get contaminated by the time it gets to school water fountains. This makes fountain filtration the final point of protection against lead contamination. Unfortunately, many filtration systems available on the market are costly and require lengthy installation. This means additional work for already busy school maintenance personnel. Blue Focus, a Louisville-based startup teamed up with a Cincinnati-based product development consultancy, Kinetic Vision to change it all.
During the development process, the team interviewed the stakeholders and learned their unmet needs, integrated the learning into a series of 2D and 3D concepts that the team tested for further improvements. For the filter casing, the designers were able to reduce its visual volume by dividing the body into a few distinctive yet coherent parts and elegantly integrating a splash guard in a form of a wave. The result is an on-fountain filter system that's not only affordable (a tenth the cost of existing products on the market) and easy to install, but also iconic. The design incorporates a tamper-resistant lock feature for a busy school environment, and a BPA-Free copolyester and lead-free brass alloy. Pure Spout proprietary media filter is lab-certified to remove lead while improving taste and odor (Certified to NSF 53 for lead reduction up to 300-gallon capacity and to NSF 372 for low lead content). With this revolutionary Pure Spout filtration system, Blue Focus aims to spread clean and safe water to a broader body of students while providing confidence and peace of mind for their parents to know that their children are drinking high-quality filtered water every day.
