As a passionate hiker and oft wild camper, there is one thing I have learnt never to take for granted, and that is safe drinking water.
Feeling dehydrated and dying (not literally) for a cold, thirst-quenching drink, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of believing that the water flowing along that uphill mountain stream, water gurgling over half-submerged rocks, is as pure as the driven snow… a trap many fall into, then end up with excruciating stomach pain or diarrhoea. That is why I always have to hand a water purifier, just in case there is the carcass of a fallen sheep prostrate in the stream, further up the fellside. It makes me shudder to think of all those harmful bacteria and viruses that could quite easily impact on our health, should the water be contaminated.
With all the humanitarian disasters unfolding around the world, you may well have heard of LifeSaver, a company backed by an outstanding heritage creating filtration products for the dispossessed. With that in mind, I would like to bring to your attention their new, 2in1 Liberty bottle, which has been designed to provide the same guarantee of clean and safe water to travellers and outdoor enthusiasts.
Doubling as both a portable water bottle and a powerful inline pump filter that can be used to provide clean water for several individuals, the compact, innovative Liberty has been designed to filter out 99.99 per cent of harmful bacteria, cysts and even viruses, leaving you with clean, safe and pure-tasting water. Requiring no additional power or chemicals, the bottle’s hand pump creates air pressure internally, thereby forcing water through the ultrafiltration membrane, making it easy to drink naturally without strenuous sucking. The treated water is then passed through an activated carbon filter, minimising unwanted tastes or odours. A neat touch is the drinking spout, which features a protective lid preventing contamination from untreated water as you scoop it up.
The LifeSaver Liberty bottle comes complete with a Scavenger hose, to allow users to pump filtered water directly from a natural water source into a container. The bottle’s mouth has also been designed to screw directly on to a Nalgene bottle, so you can quickly and easily pump clean water straight inside without spillages or contamination. What’s more, with no long wait times or specific measuring to contend with, you simply pump the water and drink with complete peace of mind.
Other features include a tactile finish, allowing for a comfortable grip with cold or wet hands, and two transparent side windows that allow users to keep track of water remaining. The bottle boasts an impressive filter capable of treating 2,000L, and thanks to LifeSaver’s products featuring the company’s Fail Safe technology, once the pores in the filter’s membrane are blocked, it no longer allows water to pass through, thus eliminating any guesswork or the risk of mistakenly drinking unfiltered water.
Drawing inspiration from the same advanced filtration technology as the original LifeSaver bottle, the small and light, robust and easy to use Liberty is the only portable water filter bottle with inline pump combined currently on the market. A world first, then, for any outdoors person in need of a reliable source of drinking water. £124.99, www.iconlifesaver.com
