Water purifiers
 

Any one have good success with Steri Pen to purify water in India? Or any other suggestions of purifiers? Not wanting to pollute the environment with purchased bottles of water.

thanks

Do a search here on steripen. The effectiveness of the steripen has been debated here several times before.

thanks. Carolyn

I've used it many times, including trips to India. The debates on this forum have rarely been from first hand experience or even centered around factual evidence.

Well, you have several other options to the steripen and bottled water. In good hotels and their accompanying restaurants, water is filtered and is perfectly fine to drink, same with ice and often from your tap, ask the hotel or there will be a sign in your room. This would go for iced tea, lassis, etc. If you are traveling more low budget, you can boil your own water or use water purifying tablets. You can also just bring tablets and use them no matter what budget you are traveling on. Finally, you can also do what the locals do and drink tea, which has been boiled and therefore the water is fine.

The steripen is plastic just like the bottles (and may have some metal parts), and moreover uses batteries as a power source, both of which have environmental consequences in terms of both production and disposal, especially the batteries. Good luck finding a proper place to dispose of the batteries in India where they will be safely handled and not just dumped or worse opened for the contents. Finally, I would note that you are flying long-haul aircraft in the first place, which is of course the most polluting aspect of the whole trip.

Environmental travel is quite the paradox for us global travelers. Short of purchasing carbon offsets, there's no way to avoid the impact of a flight to the other side of the earth. Personally, I'm not sold on the offset model, as it doesn't really address the problem.

Anyway, regarding filters:

I bought a Katadyn pocket filter back in 1994. I used it daily while I was living in a remote place in the Himalaya for 2 years, and I still use it when I travel to remote regions today. It is a hand activated pump with natural ceramic filter(no chemicals). The main downside is the purchase price - I paid around $150 for it then. I bet that it's upwards of $200 now. I'm not sure if it's right for your needs, but if you consider it is a product that will truly last a lifetime of heavy use, it is both a bargain and comparatively better for the environment.

The ceramic filters are slow but pretty effective at filtering out bacteria, parasites and even viruses. But it does not filter out heavy metals or pesticide contamination. While that isn't usually a consideration in the wilderness, in large, populous countries like China and India, those kinds of contamination are an issue. The steripen has the same short-coming. Also, the steripen doesn't kill all of the viruses.

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There steripen sterilizes water to EPA drinking water standards. This includes neutralizing viruses.

I've been using it for a few years now. My brother has been using one for the last year with no problems.

www.backpackgeartest.org has some interesting reviews from some pretty hard core users. Guides treating foul smelling, brackish water, with no issues.