The Trek: Have We All Been Filtering Our Water Wrong the Whole Time?
The Trek: Have We All Been Filtering Our Water Wrong the Whole Time?
YouTube video highlight
An evaluation on if we have been filtering our water wrong this whole time
Read more about the projectThe Trek: Have We All Been Filtering Our Water Wrong the Whole Time?
Have We All Been Filtering Our Water Wrong the Whole Time?
On a recent backpacking trip, I stopped at a stream to filter water along with some other hikers. We were making hiker trash small talk (“Man, I’m starving. What’s your trail name? Have I told you about how gross my feet are yet?” etc. etc.) when I noticed one of my fellow hikers’ strange approach to water filtration.
First, he collected stream water in a smart water bottle. He then screwed a filter onto the bottle to purify and transfer its contents into a clean water bladder. Everything checks out so far. But then he poured that clean water back into the very same dirty water bottle. And then drank it!
My tender, former-chemistry-lab-tech heart quavered. Putting clean water back in a dirty container is far from best practice for water purification. Granted, the human immune system doesn’t care nearly as much about trace levels of contaminants as, say, a mass spectrometer, but still.
Filtering the water may have taken out any microscopic creepy-crawlies that had been living in it. However, contaminants could remain in the several milliliters’ worth of droplets clinging to the sides of the dirty water bottle. By pouring the clean water back into the same bottle without sterilizing it, my new friend had just reintroduced potential pathogens back into his drinking water.
And the ineffectual water filtration practices I’ve witnessed over the years don’t end there.
Continue learning more on water filtering techniques written by Kelly Floro here.
Have We All Been Filtering Our Water Wrong the Whole Time?
On a recent backpacking trip, I stopped at a stream to filter water along with some other hikers. We were making hiker trash small talk (“Man, I’m starving. What’s your trail name? Have I told you about how gross my feet are yet?” etc. etc.) when I noticed one of my fellow hikers’ strange approach to water filtration.
First, he collected stream water in a smart water bottle. He then screwed a filter onto the bottle to purify and transfer its contents into a clean water bladder. Everything checks out so far. But then he poured that clean water back into the very same dirty water bottle. And then drank it!
My tender, former-chemistry-lab-tech heart quavered. Putting clean water back in a dirty container is far from best practice for water purification. Granted, the human immune system doesn’t care nearly as much about trace levels of contaminants as, say, a mass spectrometer, but still.
Filtering the water may have taken out any microscopic creepy-crawlies that had been living in it. However, contaminants could remain in the several milliliters’ worth of droplets clinging to the sides of the dirty water bottle. By pouring the clean water back into the same bottle without sterilizing it, my new friend had just reintroduced potential pathogens back into his drinking water.
And the ineffectual water filtration practices I’ve witnessed over the years don’t end there.
Continue learning more on water filtering techniques written by Kelly Floro here.
Have We All Been Filtering Our Water Wrong the Whole Time?
On a recent backpacking trip, I stopped at a stream to filter water along with some other hikers. We were making hiker trash small talk (“Man, I’m starving. What’s your trail name? Have I told you about how gross my feet are yet?” etc. etc.) when I noticed one of my fellow hikers’ strange approach to water filtration.
First, he collected stream water in a smart water bottle. He then screwed a filter onto the bottle to purify and transfer its contents into a clean water bladder. Everything checks out so far. But then he poured that clean water back into the very same dirty water bottle. And then drank it!
My tender, former-chemistry-lab-tech heart quavered. Putting clean water back in a dirty container is far from best practice for water purification. Granted, the human immune system doesn’t care nearly as much about trace levels of contaminants as, say, a mass spectrometer, but still.
Filtering the water may have taken out any microscopic creepy-crawlies that had been living in it. However, contaminants could remain in the several milliliters’ worth of droplets clinging to the sides of the dirty water bottle. By pouring the clean water back into the same bottle without sterilizing it, my new friend had just reintroduced potential pathogens back into his drinking water.
And the ineffectual water filtration practices I’ve witnessed over the years don’t end there.
Continue learning more on water filtering techniques written by Kelly Floro here.
Popular posts
Recent articles
Other categories
You might also like
.png)
मीडिया मेंशन
Sawyer has a longer-lasting permethrin-based solution. It impregnates fabrics with an odorless treatment for clothing and gear that lasts for up to six washes to repel or kill ticks, mosquitoes, and other bugs.
मीडिया मेंशन
When I first started this blog in 2014, backpacking was one of the ways that I became immersed in the outdoor world.
मीडिया मेंशन
सॉयर स्क्वीज़ एक समय-परीक्षण, ऑन-द-गो निस्पंदन सिस्टम है। यह हल्का विकल्प व्यक्तिगत उपयोग के लिए अद्भुत है, जो बैककंट्री में बहु-दिवसीय भ्रमण और दैनिक रोमांच पर शानदार कार्यक्षमता प्रदान करता है।
