How Many Gallons Does A Lifestraw Filter

sweat soaked shirt too hot to hunt

Besides hot, drank all my water and had to ease on back home.

I live in the loftier, dry Inter-mount West. In warm weather, I acquit at least 4 liters of h2o each 24-hour interval when hiking, scouting, hunting or fishing. On several occasions, I drank all iv liters of h2o earlier noon and had to cut precious hunting days short.

I remember thinking what a shame I tin't potable the water equally I walked dorsum to my truck along side a clear, cold creek. I was dying for a beverage of cold water but decided non hazard taking a drink because of the potential for Giardia and other parasites or leaner. I had to go to town.

Simply that was before I got a LifeStraw personal water filter. For $20 you tin can get a portable water filter that removes 99.9999% of harmful leaner and parasites. The Lifestraw filter is less than nine inches long and less than one inch in diameter and weighs most 3 ounces, then it is easy to pack (See photo 2).

LifeStraw volition Terminal for Years

Life harbinger will filter up to 264 gallons (1,000 liters) of water to down to 0.two microns. About people don't really drink this much water unless they are working hard, just the Mayo clinic recommends xiii cups per day for men and 9 cups per 24-hour interval for women. That is based on body size, so plan for yourself accordingly. So, 9 – 13 cups of water per day means the filter will last for 329 – 469 days if used for 100% of your drinking water.

LifeStraw Lightens the Load

compare water filter to 2 liter water bottle

Photo 2. Comparison of two liter water bottle to the LifeStraw water filter.

Last year, I spent 81 days fishing, hiking, scouting or hunting where I would normally pack four liters of water everyday. Just now, I but pack 2 liters of h2o and a Lifestraw, which saves over 4 lbs of weight plus information technology saves the bulk of an additional two liter container (photo 2).

I really used the Lifestraw only nearly six days. So at most, I take but sucked about four gallons of water through the filter. At that rate, it will last another six years.

Even if information technology doesn't last that many years, I will happily pay some other $20 but then I don't take to pack an extra liter of h2o every fourth dimension I get out. As I go older, I notice it is of import to save every pound of weight I can, peculiarly to a higher place 9,000 feet.

I however carry at least ii liters of water with me and if I am not sure in that location are streams in the area, I have the actress ii liters. Since I outset out with 2 containers, when one is empty I go h2o the first time I pass a stream, and then when I run out, I already take water to drink.

I normally employ the Lifestraw to drink water from the canteen instead directly from the stream. That way I tin check for sediments or turbidity before I potable. I just have to call up to wash these bottles earlier I put clean tap water in them again. If not, I am still safe if I drink through the water filter.

And then far, I accept e'er taken water from clean mountain streams. I pass the occasional stock pond or watering hole created for livestock, but have never used them. Be very conscientious before drinking from scummy ponds with large algae blooms. Some algae can produce toxins.

LifeStraw for Emergencies

You can as well use the Lifestraw water filter for emergencies like afterward floods, tornadoes or hurricanes when you are warned non to beverage the water for a few days until they get the handling plants back online.

Sure, you lot filled the bath tub before the storm like you lot were supposed to, only how did you programme on drinking that water? I know y'all washed the tub first, but y'all notwithstanding aren't going to dip your cup in at that place and take a beverage.

At least I know I can drink the entire tub of water with my Lifestraw and not get toe mucus or butt juice in my mouth.

LifeStraw also makes a family sized version; Lifestraw Family unit ane.0 Water Purifier for camping ground or emergency preparedness. It can filter 4,755 gallons of water and even removes Iodine, Chlorine and other chemicals and 99.999% of viruses besides, considering it filters objects as pocket-size as 0.02 microns.

That amount of h2o should last the average family about three years. People are spending almost the same amount of money just to put a liner in the bathtub. Forget the liner, become a family sized water filter instead. So you can potable out of the bathtub or the ditch behind your house.

LifeStraw makes a larger and more advanced version called The Mission that is for group camping because it quickly filters big volumes of water and is also capable of filtering viruses.

LifeStraw is Easy to Clean and Treat

For those of you that are paying attention to BPA and all the other junk in plastics, the LifeStraw is BPA free. For those of y'all that aren't… Since BPA is an estrogen mimic (among other things), we are all quickly turning into old women.

Just exist careful non to let the LifeStraw freeze with h2o inside of information technology. Then, subsequently every use, dorsum affluent the filter by bravado into the mouthpiece. Do this until most of the water comes out and when you back dwelling, suck clean water into the filter then blow that water back out once again. Shake the filter to brand sure the water is out and leave both ends uncapped and so it can dry.

I Drank the Water when I was Young and Dumb

I accept drunk water from streams before and got a way with it without getting ill. I even drank from a pot pigsty total of mosquito larvae and got abroad with that too, just I lived in West Africa for well-nigh 3 years and could potable out of a mud puddle with the dogs when I got home.

Earlier I went to Africa, I recall a nurse making us swear we would boil all drinking h2o for xx minutes.

When I finally got to my pocket-size village, I was shown the business firm that was provided for me. I unpacked my bags and started taking stock of what I had and what I needed. It didn't take long earlier I needed to drink.

Only first, I had to buy a saucepan to carry water and a pot to boil the h2o. I had to build a fire, simply had no axe, no saw and no firewood and didn't know where I was allowed to cut wood. And so that first solar day, I bought firewood, and then built a fire and boiled water for 20 minutes. Then I poured water back and forth between ii cups, that I besides had to purchase until it was absurd enough to beverage. This wasn't going to be piece of cake and boiled h2o doesn't gustatory modality good, especially when it's hot.

I have also used Iodine tables to treat the water, merely the sense of taste was so bad, I just used Iodine in emergency situations after that.

A few days later, I was out in the bush with some of the locals. I carried a canteen full of boiled water. The Africans drank straight from the streams or swamps. But when I drank from my canteen, they all wanted to attempt my water to see why information technology was so special. My canteen was soon empty and I went habitation thirsty and boiled more water.

Later a few days of this, I decided it wasn't practical to eddy all of my drinking h2o. So the next afternoon after my bottle was dry, I drank from the stream like everyone else.

Inside 24 hours, I had a good case of diarrhea. I noticed some blood in the watery stool, only otherwise didn't feel too bad. It cleared upwards in a few days and I continued to drink from the local water sources.

Afterward that, I usually didn't go sick unless I traveled exterior my local surface area. I judge I had go immune or could at least tolerate the local contaminants around my hamlet.

I was never diagnosed past a doctor, but based on symptoms (diarrhea, nausea, head anguish, abiding belching of foul smelling gas and flatulence), I believe I had Giardia five or 6 times. The only treatment I took was the weekly anti-malarial medicine. I noticed the symptoms decreased after taking the chloroquine phosphate, and so I took the malaria dose early when I had Giardia symptoms. The apparent cure may take been a coincidence, but there is some current literature nearly using anti-malarial medicine to treat Giardiasis.

The indicate of this story is that we tin can become locally adapted to biological contaminants in the h2o and nosotros can manage mild symptoms and continue to function. I had trivial selection because I had to live and work in that environment. If you are on a one – ii week backpack or hunting trip, that is not the time or place to prove you have a tough immune system. Play it safe and don't have any chances. I you want to claiming your allowed arrangement, do information technology when you are at dwelling house.

Potential Pathogenic Microbes in Wilderness Streams

We evolved in the h2o on this planet and nosotros should be able to beverage the water on our ain planet. It is absurd that we tin can merely drink treated water, simply that is our reality today. How many of you take ever drunk untreated h2o?

The real problem is not just what bad things are in the water, but how many of them are in that location. Even treated h2o straight from the handling plant is not sterile and a few bacteria are immune. The problem is that down stream from a pollution source, there can tremendous numbers and varieties of pathogens.

Many years ago, our ancestors drank straight from the stream. They could practice that considering they had immunity local leaner and they probably always carried a few parasites. Every bit the population grew, more people lived upstream, and so they got more than and more leaner and parasites.

It took many years before people realized the connectedness between dirty h2o and disease. People began to drink beer because they were less probable to go sick from beer than water, because water is boiled when making beer.

A wilderness stream uphill from civilization should have few pathogens in the water and the water probably wouldn't hurt the average person. But but like some people get deathly ill and even dice from eating a tainted burger, some of us can get very sick and die from tainted h2o. There may non exist people living upstream, but animals are there and people visit there.

A friend in Scotland used to drink out of the highland streams until he constitute a dead sheep a few yards upstream. He was lucky he didn't go sick.

Most of the pathogens we are talking almost are Protozoans and Bacteria. Protozoans are small single celled organisms that can alive in our intestines. These include organisms similar Giardia and Cryptosporidium. Beavers are know to harbor Giardia and Livestock commonly comport Cryptosporidium. Any beavers or cows upstream? Probably.

About protozoans are larger than one micron, so they are filtered by all of the WaterStraw water filter models.

Examples of pathogenic bacteria usually establish in water are E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter and Leptospira. All of these bacteria are constitute in the intestines of a variety of warm blooded birds and mammals and even some reptiles. Some leaner can be as small as 0.ane microns.

Viruses are extremely small-scale, down to 0.04 microns and they can likewise get into water. Simply many viruses that make people ill demand human vectors, and then the worst places are downstream from lots of people. Animals carry viruses too, but most can not bear upon humans.

The scariest diseases are viruses that can leap between birds or mammals and people, but many of these like Ebola crave direct contact, and so can not be contracted from the water.

Examples of waterborne viruses include: Hepatitis A, rotavirus, enterovirus and norovirus. Viruses tin can be equally modest as 0.04 microns. Both the LifeStraw Mission and Lifestraw Family 1.0 H2o Purifier remove 99.999% of viruses.