Here We Go Round the Mulberry Pump... er, Bush

Have you ever wished you could tap the energy generated by kids? A South African company has done just that. NPR's The World program reports that a school 15 miles north of Pretoria, in a town actually called Stinkwater, is one of 500 sites in South Africa that have connected the merry-go-round in their playgrounds to a pump that fills a water tank. The children pump enough water to provide up to 3,000 people with a clean, odor-free water supply. If you think this is frivolous, there are nearly a billion and a half people around the world don’t have access to safe drinking water, or must haul all their water distances up to several miles.

In order to make maintenance for the pumps self-supporting, billboards are attached to the water tanks, and the advertising revenue used. Very slick.