Lifesaver Bottle-water filter-drink raw(filtered) sewage?

[frank_in_oz]

A great mate of mine is heading off tomorrow to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He plans to spend his 50th birthday on top of the mountain. We were invited but just could not afford the $10k to join the party!

He is the most organised and anal retentive person I know and has done a huge amount of research to plan the trip.

One item that is relevant to this Forum is the "Lifesaver Bottle" http://www.lifesaversystems.com/index.html

He is taking one of them and wrote it up for me (with a stack of other information ) here: http://ourhikingblog.com.au/2010/02/mount-kilimanjaro-plan-climb.html

From his notes:
it has a 15nm filter to remove all organisms.( smallest virus is the polio virus at 20nm) plus a charcoal inner to remove heavy metals and toxins.
You can put raw sewage in it – give it a few pumps and out comes drinkable water. ( but sodium in the water will be high due to the urine)
Advantage is that it is:
- Lightweight
- does not require chemicals
- fast
- good for 4,000 litres BUT the charcoal filter is only good for 250L before it needs changing. it should be ample for the trip if I assume 5L per day for 8 days.

I KNOW Tassie's water is some of the purest in the world and we NEVER treat or filter it but ,as this forum is expanding nationally, I thought I would throw up the following questions:
- Has anyone come across this unit?
- does anyone own one?
- how well did it work?
- pluses /minuses?
- comments?

When he gets back we plan to do a bit of a review of it to see how it performs.

Frank

[ollster]

Basically off topic, but... I saw an episode of Man vs Wild where Bear Grylls gives himself an aenema with seabird-poo contaminated water in order to safely absorb the water content through his lower intestine. I'd say that I'd go the aenema before putting raw sewage in a pump filter and drinking the result, but if this device can claim that sort of performance then it might be handy in some parts.

PS: I'd pay someone at least $20 to do either as a dare...

[Ent]

I for one would not like to have to explain to the accident and emergency staff why I was doing either of these things I think I will draw the line at raiding a yabbie's home for water. Though with this dry weather normal water sources are drying up or looking rather stagnant.

Cheers Brett

[Franco]

Ollster
Someone posted that in one of the US forums, my comment to it was "with enemas like that, who needs friends.."
Franco

[Joe]

...... gives himself an aenema .....

Do I detect a Tool fan? Shouldt be any water problems if mom (sic) comes to flush it all away

[corvus]

How do you think it would cope with the "pumped" liquids from the OLT toilets,I would not be game
corvus

[optdyl]

G'day Frank,

I've seen videos of this product being demonstrated by its developer (see: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/micha ... ilter.html). He hopes to roll-out its use as a post-disaster way to provide drinking water (instead of supplying bottled water, and creating huge amounts of landfill).

From what I have seen even though the charcoal filter does not last as long as the nano-particle filter it is not a necessity for safe drinking water as it only removes smell and flavour after all the nastys are removed by the nano-filter.

It has also been taken up by the UK defense forces.

It is definitely an interesting product which has the potential to provide safe drinking water for a (somewhat) reasonable price.

[ULWalkingPhil]

I purchased one of these Lifesaver Bottles a couple weeks ago, Put it to the test last week on The Great Walk at Fraser Island. I'm very happy with it. Easy to use and the water tasted great, I use the Lifesaver Bottle everyday at home and filter the tap water for drinking.

[ninjapuppet]

Reckon you're game enough to filter pee?

I saw a video of some bloke scooping up water from this really dirty brown sludge and drinking the filtered water in front of an audience.

[ULWalkingPhil]

Nope, Not game on filtering Pee, I don't think it would taste nice even after filtering, and the thought of drinking your own or anyones else Pee, I seen similar videos on youtube of people filtering muddy water and drinking it.