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Don't Go Camping Without A Camping Water Filter!
When most people are packing to go camping, ‘water filter’ is not necessarily the item at the top of their list, but in many cases it should be. Unless you are going to be camping in an area that has a guaranteed clean source of water, you should consider including some sort of water filtration device in your camping supplies. Keep in mind however, that just because water is safe to drink doesn’t mean it is going to taste good. The water in mountainous areas is often quite high in iron and has a strong metallic taste. In deserts and plains you might find alkaline water that has a sulphur taste similar to rotten eggs. The water won’t hurt you, but if you aren’t accustomed to the taste it can mean a less enjoyable camping experience. A camping water filter can solve this problem by removing minerals and impurities that affect the taste of the water. A carbon filter can successfully remove minerals, metals, chlorine and other impurities that affect the taste as well as many common water-borne bacteria such as cryptosporidium and giardia. You aren’t likely to encounter anything worse than that in most public campsites. When camping in remote wilderness areas, you can be reasonably certain that you will not have plumbing or a well nearby, so your camping water filter will need to be capable of doing more than just improving the taste. Without access to a well, you will need to either carry enough water to sustain you and your party for the duration of the trip or bring a good water purification system. There are a few methods you can use to transform water from lakes or rivers into safe drinking water. When using just a carbon filter in the wilderness, it is necessary to boil the water or disinfect it with bleach, iodine or ultraviolet light before filtering to ensure that it is safe to drink. A portable reverse osmosis system is one of the most effective ways to remove dangerous contaminants without the need for additional disinfection. Reverse osmosis works by forcing the water through a semi-permeable membrane. The membrane is so fine that only the water can pass through and nothing else, not even microscopic organisms. One problem with reverse osmosis is the fact that the process is quite slow. It takes a long time to produce clean water this way, and there is a considerable amount of water that gets wasted in the process. However, reverse osmosis does have the ability to remove the salt from sea water and make it drinkable, so it is a definite asset on long boat trips or when camping near the ocean. Another popular type of camping water filter is a ceramic micro filter. In this type of system, the water flows through layers of porous ceramic to filter out contaminants. Ceramic is almost as effective as reverse osmosis, and with less waste. Many portable water filtration systems combine ceramic with carbon to improve the taste as well as trap harmful contaminants. To read more about different types of water filters, please follow these links:
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