Filter your water while traveling?

Hey toxin dodgers,

A reader asked me about filtering water while travelling.

Here’s my answer…you should read if you want to remove microplastics and other toxins from your water (whether you’re traveling or at home)

— QUESTION —

“Hi Alex,

I have 3 young boys and some decent travels planned. Think hotels with plastic bottles etc.

We will take our steel bottles but looking into what filter can eliminate microplastics, nano plastics and forever chemicals within the hotel room?” - Jake C

— ANSWER —

The goal of filtering your water is the same whether traveling or at home.

(its just more challenging while you travel)

Its like a hierarchy. Start at the bottom and move to the top.

Level 1: remove stuff that will kill you fast.

Parasites. Water-born virus’s etc.

Good news: this is mostly taken care for you (at home)…and when overseas drinking bottled water means you won’t die. Immediately.

Hooray lets move on:

Level 2: Remove stuff that might kill you slowly.

By this I mean all the chemicals and contaminants that are in the tap water and hence the news a lot right now.

Forever chemicals. Pharmaceuticals. Plasticizer chemicals. Agricultural chemicals. Heavy metals. etc. (too many to list).

This stuff won’t kill you immediately.

But a lifetime (or less) of exposure is going to make you “fat, sick and infertile” according to many sources (my favorite being Estrogeneration)

I have more good news for you:

Most good water filters will remove majority of this stuff!

For water filters you can travel with check out something like the clearly filtered SS bottle or something from Lifestraw.

Lifestraw is my top pick. Even though their stuff is mostly plastic (all water filters are) their filter tech is #1.

Important: bottled water companies have been caught lying again for lying about whats in their water so even if drinking bottled water while traveling…run it through a water filter like the one above.

Level 3 - remove it ALL (contaminants, chemicals AND microplastics)

Now we have safe water and its mostly free from contaminants.

But we still have to deal with micro-and-nanoplastics.

Im not gonna lie removing this stuff (fully) requires commitment.

Its a challenge. but it is possible.

The water filters I shared above will take out most of the contaminants and some microplastics.

Microplastics range from 5 millimeters (mm) down to 0.1 micrometers (µm) in size.

(0.1 micrometers is tiny. About 1/800th the thickness of a human hair)

But most water filters can’t filter down to 0.1 micronmeters.

But some can get close; some water filters that can filter down to 0.2 microns.

Again Lifestraw is probably the best filter brand here (especially for portable filters)

Check out this article and scroll to the bottom where they actually list their models that can filter for (most) microplastics and the models that (might) filter out nanoplastics too.

I’ve mentioned NANO plastics a few times now so lets address the elephant in the room.

NANOplastics are the stubborn problem.

They are smaller than microplastics therefore its thought they can cross the blood-brain barrier.

…and end up in your brain, organs, balls etc. (you’ve seen the studies, right?)

Unfortunately we can’t really test for Nanoplastics in our water (yet) because of how small they are (e.g. this microplastic water test goes down to only 0.1 microns)

but…time for some good news

There are two ways you can filter your water for nanoplastics!

1. Use a really good RO system (some can filter down 0.0001 microns which will remove nanoplastics)

2. Use a zero-plastic-contact water distiller (which will completely remove nanoplastics)

Either option makes sense at home…but what about when you’re traveling?

This is where your commitment is tested.

You could either bring a countertop water distiller with you in your check in luggage, or travel with a survival distiller like one of these.

Inconvenient….but possible.

Let me wrap this up for you:

TOO LONG DIDN’T READ

My boy Jake - to filter your water while on the road here’s what I recommend:

OPTION 1: get a good lifestraw water filter (want with ultrafiltration) and call it a day.

Filter your bottled water through your life-straw into your stainless steel bottles.

Then…focus on helping your body detox/remove micro-and-nanoplastics using your diet (lots of fibre) and certain supplements (I can do a deep dive on detoxing microplastics if enough readers want it)

OPTION 2: Get a countertop water distiller and travel with it in your check in luggage. Cop the extra luggage fee’s now, but save on microplastic-sickness medicine later.

Oh boy. That was a long winded answer.

But I hope it helped.

Maybe hit reply and let me know if it did?

Alex

P.s. Also hit reply to this email if you have your own specific question you want answered. I can’t get to them all but will do my best.