LifeStraw is a straw ideal for hiking, backpacking, camping, and travel as well as your general emergency preparedness. LifeStraw lets you drink directly from streams and lakes by using its straw-style filter design to turn up to 1,00 liters of contaminated water into safe drinking water. The team at LifeStraw is redefining the idea of sustainable safe drinking water through technological innovation.
The company started in 1994 when the Carter Center approached LifeStraw’s parent company, Vestergaard, regarding contamination in drinking water. Carter Center wondered if there was a way to develop a filter that could remove Guinea worm larvae from the water it was contaminating. A cloth filter was designed and by 1999 it evolved into a more effective pipe form. Vestergaard, inspired by the success of this filter, began working to develop a product that could filter out virtually all the microbiological contaminates that makes water unsafe to drink. The result was LifeStraw which was created in 2005.
LifeStraw was originally designed for developing countries who do not have access to clean water but in 2008 the technology was adapted for in-home use. Today LifeStraw is used in 64 countries around the world. Vestergaard has continued to see the need for this type of product in developing countries so in 2014 they launched a program, LifeStraw Follow the Liters. Essentially this programs allows for each consumer purchase to provide one school child in a developing community with safe drinking water for an entire school year.
This product is revolutionary and allows people all around the world to have access to clean water which is something we take for granted and rarely think about not having access to.
To read more about LifeStraw and their world around the world visit http://lifestraw.com/.
I think it is very interesting that originally LifeStraw was meant for camping and hiking, LifeStraw saw the problem of having clean drinking water while adventuring and came up with a solution for it. However, the Carter Center took this solution and took it to a new market, they saw the world wide problem of clean drinking water and using and modifying LifeStraw, they solved it.
I saw this straw on Instagram! I love love LOVE this product because it can be used by literally all. Supporting both the recreational man and the needy really is the ideal innovative outlet in which case this efficient tool provides an absolute essential to both. Excellent.
These are magnificent. I have seen these marketed for outdoorsy purposes, but I love the practical social aspect. It’s additionally great that they use the one-for-one concept like Toms and Warby Parker.
This is such an exciting product that can be used by everyone!! I love how this is not only for outdoors people but its also a lifesaving tool for people in poor areas who don’t have access to clean water. If there was a cheap, easy way to make and then distribute to countries all over the world, it could make a huge impact.