Sawyer Water Filter

A relatively inexpensive option, the sawyer water filter bottle has a 7 log / 99.99999% rating for removal of bacteria, and a 6 log / 99.9999% rating for removal of protozoa (cyst). This exceeds EPA and world heath organization recommendations. This is a pretty simple personal drinking system, basically dip the container into a lake or preferably a running stream, and screw the lid on and drink it ! The filter in the sawyer water filter bottle uses technology adapted from medical dialysis equipment to remove backteria, protozoa, cysts and other contaminants. Drinking water straight from a stream or lake these days is like playing russian roulette, you might get away with it, but the consequences can be severe or even deadly if you get unlucky. You cannot see Giardia, Cryptosporidium, E. Coli, Coliform, or protozoa but you'll sure as hell feel them if you ingest them into your body.

This particular sawyer water filter will not protect you against water borne viruses, but the majority of cases of sickness from drinking unclean water are bacterial in nature so this should be a minimum level of protection that you afford yourself. Water that may appear to be clean and safe to drink may not always be safe.

To give yourself another level of protection put of few drops of iodine tincture in the water, or an iodine tablet, and let it sit for twenty minutes or so. If its extremely cold, it may take longer for the iodine to work.

If you want to be 100% certain to avoid these little death by diarreaha parasites collect and boil your water first, then drink it out of your sawyer water filter bottle or other similar container.

LOG removal rates explained:
LOG	% removal / inactivation:
0-.5	68.4%
1	90%
2	99%
3	99.9%
4	99.99%
5	99.999%
6	99.9999%
7	99.99999%

Backflushing.

As with most filter systems occasionally you will need to backflush the filter element. Sawyer offers a faucet adapter backflushing kit, which also comes with a syringe for field backflushing, the cost for the kit is around $18 bucks. The backflushing kit will also work with a lot of sawyers other water filtration products. Sawyer claims that its filters require backflushing 20 times LESS than ceramic filter systems, but obviously this would depend greatly on the condition / turbidity of the water prior to filtering.

Protection from viruses.

As I mentioned previously, this bottle filter will not protect you against viruses, Sawyer does however have several products in its line that will. This bottle utilizes the "PointOne" filter, which is 0.1 micron, which is tiny, but not small enough to prevent some viruses from passing through the filter. Sawyers "Point Zero Two" filters will stop not only biological contamination, but also provides full virus protection. This comes at a price obviously, a filter system for a five gallon bucket costs around $110 USD. Also available from Sawyer is a complete "Bag to Bag" system that sells for around $200 USD.

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