4/14/2024
WT Staff
WT Interview with Robin Richards, Nibi Envirotech
Portable potable water and garden solutions for remote applications
WT: Thank you for doing this. Tell me about the start of your business, where you came from, where are you at?
Robin Richards: Thank you for having me. We have come up with a great technology to containerize water treatment in order for it to be brought into remote communities a lot easier than with the regular brick and mortar. We've come up with a plan to put (water treatment) on to shipping containers for agricultural needs and water purposes. Essentially we created a bottling station for remote communities to have access to clean drinking water, no matter what the water source. Then with our agro-pods, it's a containerized greenhouse for indoor ag anywhere in the world, at any time of the year weather is not a dependency anymore.
WT: Nibi - can you tell me where the business name come from and what it means?
Richards: Nibi is Ojibway for water. I am Aboriginal. We've set out to try to clean up these communities' water systems. It seems as if they need a hand cleaning up a lot of the water in situations. We have taken the onus upon ourselves to come up with a technology and a responsive team that is able to deploy not only a water treatment unit but an agricultural unit for anywhere you need, whether its semi-permanently or on an emergency basis. We can also lease the units as well, if a community is in desperate need for either of these (potable water or agro-pods). It's also a very good technology for mines. Mines don't stay put forever, they do move from site to site. With our technology you can take it to the next job site, which I feel is a key selling piece for the mines.
WT: Where is the business itself?
Richards: I'm located in Winnipeg and we manufacture here in Winnipeg. We have partners, Climate Control Nebula are our parts provider. We work with Delta 9 Biotech, that helps with our manufacturing. Nebula is out of Leamington, ON and Delta 9 Biotech is here in Winnipeg. We have parterned up with a nice synergy between the three of us.
WT: You want to be able to lease these systems to mining companies. How many miners could one of your systems give fresh water to?
Richards: The beauty of these things, it's endless. The more people you have, if you have 1000 people on site, we recommend a 40 ft container. That's going to have up to three 10 thousand gallon tubs in it. If it's closer to around 500 people, we would have a 20 ft container with one 10,000 gallon jug. The beauty of it, it is always self-filling, so even as you fill a bottle on one end, the system automatically fills itself, it is a continuous cycle of water coming in and out.
WT: You had some federal government help in setting this up, I think. Can you tell me something about that?
Richards: We have a system paid for through ISC, this was set up in Valley River. ISC came in and vetted us, made sure we are up to provincial standards, making sure we dotted i's and crossed our t's because people's health is our number one goal, to make sure people are having a healty lifestyle. In order to have a healthy community you have to have clean drinking water. The ISC basically green-lit our system. It's full steam ahead now.
WT: If a mining company calls you and wants one of these systems to lease or buy, what's the lead time to deliver this?
Richards: We can deliver in six to eight weeks. We are in the process of building a few for leasing capabilities and emergency deployment situations operated through the government (Manitoba). They are either going to own them or we will lease them to the government and they will deploy them on an emergency basis.
The process for miners, obviously they know the location, we need an initial water sample to configure the unit to their specific needs. Every community's water is going to be a little bit different, whether we are getting out manganese, or e.coli, this depends which quadrant of Canada you live in. We need a water sample in order to put the right filters in place to have a successful yield at the end.
WT: Where did your water know how come from?
Richards: I have a sales background, my water know-how has come from sitting in meetings with these people. I have engineers to take care of the chemistry end of this. I put the right people in the right places, we have engineers, we have water engineers, we have all these people to make sure we are creating the right system for the right community.
WT: Tell us where people can find you, let people know where they can get it touch with you, your website.
Richards www.nibienvirotech.com
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