The Eco-Friendly Gift Guide: What To Give The World Traveler
My husband loves to travel—but he’s not a big fan of the trail of plastic bottles he leaves behind whenever he visits a country with sub-par water sanitation.
After coming back from his trip last month—he was fed up (and probably a bit flight-bored) so, he ended up calculating that he’s already used at least 245 plastic water bottles while working abroad in the past six months.
Eeek. That night I hunted for a solution. Enter GRAYL:
GRAYL uses a NASA-created filter in a French-press style water bottle. The set up basically allows anyone to drink water from almost anywhere. It has a pretty impressive filtering range. In fact, GRAYL’s claim to fame includes purifying all waterborne pathogens plus, chemicals, heavy metals, chlorine, and (woot, woot) even microplastics. If you are a stickler for certifications, filtered GRAYL water officially meets EPA’s national drinking standards.
What I ordered | Two of GRAYL’s Ultralight purifiers. I got one in gray for my hubby and one in green to gift to Hazel’s husband—he travels a ton too.
What We Love About The GRAYL | Before taking his GRAYL on his next work trip to India, we decided to test out the bottle’s filtering power beforehand. We took it on our yearly hike on the Wilson River Trail. The water tasted great, there were no floaties to be seen (we even dipped it in a muckier part of the river) and neither of us got remotely sick. After hubby got home from India, he also gave me a lot more feedback on the GRAYL. Mostly, he liked that it was super light and that even though he dropped it a few times, it still didn’t break. He also only used about five plastic bottles on his six day trip. Which was in his words, “a big improvement.” On a health note, I especially like that the carbon GRAYL’s uses in their filter is made from natural coconut husks (instead of coir, lignite, or petroleum pitch).
Good To Knows | It takes a two-handed effort to filter the water. This isn’t a pour-and-go filter, you need to actually push the water through the filter by pressing the inner bottle down. Also, while the GRAYL has a pretty expansive list of filtering capabilities, you’ll want to steer clear of using the bottle to filter blue algea contaminated areas (I’m looking at you Odell Lake!) since the filter can’t remove cyanotoxins. Also, we really, really, hope GRAYL' bring back their stainless steel version of the water bottle, for an even more eco-friendly alternative.
Price | Under $60
Sustainability | Each cartridge can replace 300 plastic bottle uses and GRAYL is currently working on setting up a zero-waste program that lets you send in your old cartridge to recycle—the zero-waste program should launch in early 2020. GRAYL is a member of 1% For the Planet. They donate to the Adventure Travel Conservation Fund and also maintain a steady partnership with the Conservation Alliance. The Alliance helps disperse GRAYL’s donations into grassroots environmental programs that are more community-based. On a local level, the GRAYL team often volunteers to clear out invasive species in one of their fav. Seattle parks.
My hubby sent this picture to me on his first trip with GRAYL. He sent it with a couple of thumbs up emojis, which in our relationship-lingo, means the water bottle was total success. Also, this picture makes me laugh mostly because my hubby managed to capture the moment a mosquito bit him too. Ah, the joys of travel.
Here’s our water water bottle in action. It takes about 15-ish seconds or so for the water to move through the orange filter and into the drinkable section. FYI, I really do have to press down with two hands to really get the filter moving.
Pretty fast, eh?
What tips and tricks do you have for more eco-friendly travel? Have you used a Grayl before? Let me and my sister know about it on our Insta!
XOXO,
Lemon
