The Lifesaver is a water bottle–but not just any water bottle. Through "an advanced ultra-filtration membrane that incorporates a high specification carbon block" it can convert dirty water to clean in a matter of seconds–you put in the water, pump it through the filter a few times, then drink. The cartridge is supposed to be able to filter out waterborne pathogens and eliminate bad tastes and odors, too. The replaceable cartridge has a filtering capacity of 4,000 to 6,000 litres, so it’s not short-lived: 700 litres is a year’s supply of water for one person. The military is interested, naturally, but an even more important application would be to supply clean drinking water after disasters such as the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 or Hurricane Katrina: instead of distributing bottled water, you could distribute bottles that clean the water that’s at hand. And even in the absence of disasters, access to clean water is a worldwide problem.
Hmmm. My daughter’s water bottle is starting to smell funny. Maybe I should be getting her one of these…
Or maybe the Lifestraw is the way to go. It’s a plastic pipe filter 25 centimetres long and 29 millimetres in diameter that costs just a few dollars and can purify up to 700 litres of water.
A word of advice, though: when giving a Lifestraw to a suffering disaster victim, find a different way to instruct him in its use than telling him to "suck it up."
(Via Gizmag.)
(Photo from Gizmag.)
[tags]water,disaster relief,technology[/tags]
These are great ideas. I recall being stuck in Morocco on a bike trip and the only water we had to drink was a donkey watering hole. Yum.
To me, the lifestraw seems much more useful, as it’s more portable and cheaper. That could easily fit in a survival kit. I guess with the Lifesaver you get a bottle, but if I can save 200 quid, I’ll get my own bottle, thanks.
Anyone seen Survivorman on Discovery? I just saw it and man, it’s amazing what you can drink and eat and not get (too) sick from.
The original price mentioned for the Lifestraw was $2 each. I think they’re re-estimating that upward. Still, pretty cheap for a year’s worth of clean water!
I have used every type of filter/purifier on the market and none of them have been as effective and simple to use as the Lifesaver bottle. I have two bottles, one for home and one for travel. I noticed one of the prior reviewers remarked on his discolored well water remaining discolored once it was filtered through the lifesaver. While the lifesaver bottle will filter out all microbiologicals including bacteria and even viruses it will not filter solutions such as the saline from salt water nor will it remove all of the color that is associated with a solution. For example, if you run tea or coffe through the filter the result will be clean water but the color of the water will mainsome of tea coloring. Personaly, I have drank water from some bad sources such as the great dismal swamp and stagnant ponds and the result is always the same, clean, pure water.