subject: Are Portable Water Bottle Filters A Scam? [print this page] Are Portable Water Bottle Filters A Scam?
With each passing day, more news stories and scientific reports come out about how bad bottled water is for us. We wound up spending millions for something we usually received for free. ABC News show "20/20" famously sent famous brands of bottled water to a lab and they discovered that the contents were identical to tap water. The plastic bottles are also found to be not biodegradable. So, are portable water bottle filters the same bill of bad goods?
What are They? Portable water bottle filters are found mostly in sporting goods, camping and RV supply stores. They look just like a usual plastic water bottle - only they have an intricate logo and a small unit inside containing water filtration media. These are sturdy bottles to be used again and again. You definitely don't want to use these just once, especially since the average price is $15 - and that does not include replacement cartridges. Many times, portable water bottle filters are made of a plastic that is not derived from hard to decay petroleum but from corn oil or other botanical materials that are biodegradable. Others feature designs that don't have many problems leaking, which stops any waste of the precious water inside. Some feature a filtration media that's in a plastic unit while others are portable ceramic water bottles. The ceramic bottles will usually be more expensive than the plastic, sometimes three or four times as expensive. These bottles will look more like small pumps or fire extinguishers rather than the typical water bottle. How Safe is the Water? There are pros and cons to using portable water bottle filters. The pros are that it can filter out dirt, even asbestos and bacteria like salmonella. They also are lightweight and can be easily packed with you. They are also far less expensive than many other kinds of water filtration systems. But you can't live on strange bodies of water strained through a portable water bottle filter. For one thing, the bottle only holds about as much water as a soda can. You need to keep refilling all of the time. Also, many dangerous chemicals are much smaller than the filtration media can handle and will slip into your water anyway. If you are taking a hike, twist your ankle and have to wait a couple of days for help next to a trickling stream, then a portable water bottle filter is better than nothing at all. But for more practical use in camping, you should boil your water and let it cool before drinking it.
