Lifestraw Personal Water Filter

LifeStraw® is an award-winning personal water filter, designed to provide safe, clean drinking water in any situation. Lifeguard® is an extremely effective portable water filter created for prevention of common waterborne diarrhoeal diseases, and is now available from Powdersafe.

The lightweight filter is ideal for hiking and camping, travel, emergency preparedness and survival. It makes contaminated or suspect water safe to drink.

Features
·         No power or moving parts - designed for tough outdoor conditions. Perfect for humanitarian work, travelers and camping, hunting and working outdoors.
·         Robust - requires basic care and little basic maintenance
·         Very Cost Effective
·         Stores indefinitely
·         rated to filter 1000 litres of fresh surface water to .2 micron - that is about 18 mths drinking water for an adult
·         In emergency work - easy to distribute - no packaging and assembly required, just hand out for use
Specifications:
·         Filters at least 1,000 liters of water (264 gallons)
·         Weighs only 54 grams (2 oz.)
·         Removes up to 99.99999 percent of waterborne bacteria
·         Removes up to 99.9 percent of waterborne protozoan cysts
·         Reduces turbidity by filtering particles of approx 0.2 microns
·         BPA Free and contains no chemicals
·         Uses no batteries or moving parts
 
What are LifeStraw®'s filtration limitations?


LifeStraw® has been created to filter drinkable water from surface fresh water and was originally designed with humanitarian aid in developing countries in mind. Many people in developing countries (about 1 billion) are forced to drink water from water sources that risk contamination, such as by dead animals or faecal contaminants from leaky toilet trenches, and as a result the water can often contain water-borne diseases. LifeStraw®products filter the fresh water to significantly reduce the user's chance of catching disease that could be carried in the water. In humanitarian aid conditions this includes filtering well water that can also be tainted.
LifeStraw® is a personal device designed for removing biologicals and turbidity, essentially materials suspended in the water, but does not filter out the following:
 

• Water polluted by chemicals or radiation
• Salt from salt water
• Water with naturally occurring chemicals, such as calcium and iron in Australian bore water, or arsenic, a contaminant that occurs naturally in well water in some countries.
  All water borne viruses. While the majority of water-borne diseases are not viral, the .2 micron pore cannot claim to remove all viruses.

LifeStraw® does not claim to be a 'Silver Bullet' to make all water drinkable, so some common sense is always recommended. However for drinking safe water from fresh flood-water, creeks, dams, puddles, and animal troughs, Lifestraw® is perfect for use by anyone playing outdoors such as hunters, campers and hikers, and outdoor professionals. LifeStraw® are also perfect for travellers if you want to avoid traveller sickness. The obvious advantage of LifeStraw® is that you won't have to use chemicals to kill any nasties in the water, won't have to boil water, and in some cases won't need to carry so much heavy water if you know you will be in a water rich environment. 

LifeStraw® isextremely efficient, rhobust, safe and great value. Because LifeStraw® are very successful in filtering out diseases such as Giardia, E Coli, and other water borne diseases commonly found in creek water, you will be much safer using a LifeStraw® than not. 
 
Your LifeStraw® is rated to filter 1000 Litres of fresh water. 

1000 litres = about 1.5 years of fresh drinking water (if you are good and drink your 2litres per day)
1000 litres = about 1 pallet of bottled water

Please note that any recommendations of quantities depend on care and the quality of water accessed. Like some packaged food, the use-by date/quantity can be affected by how well the item is looked after and cared for, and can exceed the recommended quantity.

Consequently there is no magic button to show when your 1000 litres are up, because a LifeStraw® can be effective well beyond the 1000 litres. If water is coming through, the water is filtered safely. 

LifeStraw® filters are highly efficient micro-pore units that use nano-technology to remove water-borne diseases. The life of a LifeStraw® is not gauged by how many litres are sucked through it, but by the clay that is often in water, especially water that looks brown and dirty. Clay will gradually clog the super-fine pores and finally no more water can be drawn through. Please see our Maintenance guidelines to get the most life from your LifeStraw®.

Often, we in the Western world will be hard pressed to use the LifeStraw® to its full capacity, but if you care for it, you will be safely using your LifeStraw® for years to come.

Be kind to your LifeStraw® and it will be kind to you.
 
Does LifeStraw® need maintenance?
LifeStraw® has no moving parts, requires no electrical power, and is constructed to function safely under the rugged conditions of the daily needs of those living in developing nations. As a result the maintenance requirements for your LifeStraw® are minimal.

1. Blow back out - reverse flush - after every use!
If drinking from fresh water that has a lot of fibrous material the filter may clog or become restricted. Blowing back out will help to blow any materials or clay out - in other words blow through the LifeStraw® rather than suck.
 
2. Regularly clean your LifeStraw® - especially after camping, hunting trip, or other concentrated use

Sometimes, after your LifeStraw® has seen some use and you have blown out after your drink, as recommended, you might leave your LifeStraw®in your back-pack. When you use again it can sometimes feel very difficult to drink through, even blocked!
 
Think of the LifeStraw® Filter as like a mass of drinking straws all shrunk down to a tiny size, so small in fact that, like a mosquito cannot get through a mosquito net, nasty germs and other disease causing biologicals cannot get through the LifeStraw® filter. Even though the technology is very clever and hard-wearing it still needs care to get the best life out of your LifeStraw®. Sometimes the clay is not all removed - then what?

We find that the best maintenance is to grab a glass of clean water and then, with your LifeStraw®, suck and blow in fresh water to clean the filter. You will see the clay and other materials move into the clean water. Repeat this process till you are happy with the water flow. If the LifeStraw® is blocked, leave to soak in warm water before you suck-blow.