LifeStraw

A $3 gadget that promises to quench a user's thirst for a year without spare parts, electricity or maintenance

Excerpt:

With his rimless eyeglasses and natty suit, 35-year-old Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen looks like the kind of CEO who enjoys a fine red. Less likely is the image of him slurping that Bordeaux through a bright blue straw the size of a fat kazoo. But slurp he has, and not just wine: he's also tasted soda, pond water, and water from a lake in Nairobi through the gizmo. "You have to suck pretty hard at first to get it moist, but after that it's easy," he says of the LifeStraw, the portable water filter manufactured by his Danish company.


Wiki: Lifestraw

Excerpt:

The LifeStraw is a plastic tube 25 centimeters long and 29 millimeters in diameter, and costs around $2.00. Water that is sucked through the straw first passes through a mesh of 100-micrometer spaces, then through a mesh of 15-micrometer spaces. Water then passes through a chamber with iodine-coated beads, killing remaining bacteria. The water passes through an empty chamber, then finally passes through active carbon, removing the iodide taste and medium-sized bacteria. The entire process is powered by regular sucking, similar to using a conventional drinking straw, and filters up to 700 liters of water.

LifeStraw purifies water instantly for under $2 a year

Excerpt:

There are gadgets that make life more fun, and then there are gadgets that make life possible. The LifeStraw from Denmark's Vestergaard Frandsen Group has the potential to fall into the latter category.

Comment: It's good to see inventors producing things that really save lives. I love the MP3 players, Blue Ray DVD players, IPhones, etc - but here is a device that actually really matters!