There’s a new water purification product on the market called LifeStraw Family. It is a unique product particularly useful for prepping and survival. As far as I know, it is the only commercial water purification system to meet my three top criteria:
1. inexpensive (current pricing, subject to change, is under $90)
2. high capacity (thousands of gallons of water)
3. meets EPA standards for removal of protozoa, bacteria, and viruses
If you read prepping and survival blogs, you’ve probably seen ads for, or articles about, LifeStraw Personal. The device looks like a very fat straw, and it can be used to drink fresh water directly from a dirty source. (See my past post on LifeStraw Personal.) However, it only filters out bacteria and protozoa (parasites) to EPA standards, NOT viruses. And the same is true for many other low-cost water purification systems. They don’t have the capability to filter out viruses.
Until LifeStraw Family came along, the least expensive water purification system that would filter out viruses as well as bacteria and protozoa, to EPA standards, was the Lifesaver Bottle 4000 Ultra Filtration Water Bottle (currently priced at over $150 on Amazon), which filters up to 4,000 liters of water (1050 gallons).
Now we preppers have available to us a water purification system that can filter 18,000 liters (4,750 gallons) of water for under $90. So you get 4.5 times the purification capacity for 40% less cost. Moreover, LifeStraw Family does not require buying new filters or other replacement parts in order to purify those 18,000 liters of water.
The EPA standard for removal of pathogens is:
(1) bacteria, 6 logs (i.e. 99.9999%) or better
(2) viruses, 4 logs (99.99%) or better
(3) parasites, 3 logs (99.9%) or better.
LifeStraw Family meets or exceeds that standard for all three types of pathogens. LifeStraw Family will not make salt water drinkable; it does not remove salts, heavy metals, or volatile organic compounds. It is intended only to make fresh water microbiologically clean.
This product is new to the U.S. commercial market; it became available just this month (Sept 2013). But it has been used since 2005 by humanitarian agencies around the world. So it has been tested thoroughly in the field. It is available at the Earth Easy website.
- Thoreau
