Portable Water Filter Bottle Gets Good Review

We don’t normally do product reviews, but we just got word of a water purifying gizmo out there so useful and interesting we couldn’t pass it up. Contributing Editor Hugh Gardner calls it a "real breakthrough" and our follow-up research bears him out. The device is called "Safe Water Anywhere" and it was created by a company based in Durango, Colorado. Gardner writes: "This weightless wonder works simply by scooping up water from any source in the plastic bottle, then squeezing it out through the bottle’s built-in high-tech filters. The filters take care of microbiological contaminants such as giardia, cryptosporidium and E. coli, not to mention dissolved solids, heavy metals such as lead and mercury, and volatile organic contaminants such as chlorine and PCB’s. The filters do not take care of viruses, which are so small they can pass through the filters, but you can kill viruses simply by dissolving an iodine tablet in the filtered water. The bottle has been tested by EPA approved methods at state-accredited laboratories, such as the County of Los Angeles Environmental Toxicology Laboratory. Moreover, folks at the Red Cross have reported to Safe Water Anywhere that none of their field workers who used the bottle recently in Acapulco, Mexico, contracted any water-borne diseases. As regards cost, the half-liter SW-Pro model retails for $34.95, and the one-liter SW-Expedition model retails for $39.95. With periodic cleaning, the one-liter model produces 200 gallons of water, which works out to about 20 cents per gallon. The company recommends you replace the filter after 200 gallons, and replacement filters cost $19.95. These bottles are currently being sold in only a couple of shops around the country, but you can order them from the company direct. I believe these bottles are a breakthrough in on-stream safety and convenience that will change the way we think about clean drinking water on fishing and hiking trips. In short, no more lugging heavy water in containers or awkward, expensive pump filters, and best of all, no more worries. I guarantee there will be one in my pack from here on out."