There has been a big push by water authorities and environmentalists all over to reduce the amount of bottled water consumed in North America, with good reason. While bottled water is convenient, it creates untold tonnes of plastic waste every year, filling up landfills and wasting energy to create them. Not only that, but the bottled water industry is less regulated than the tap water industry. This means that the water isn’t necessarily as safe as tap water, but sneaky and underhanded advertising campaigns have made the public perceive bottled water as the best source available, which is absolutely untrue.

To try and help mitigate the overuse of bottled water, companies have started to manufacture portable filtration devices with internal filters so you can filter tap water to remove some taste and odor. I will compare two devices, the Filtrete Water Bottle Docking Station, and the Brita Bottle with Filter.

Brita Bottle with Filter:

This device is simply a water bottle with a filter. It’s portable, does the same filter job of a regular Brita filter (reduces tastes, odors, lead) and a single filter can replace up to 150 bottles of water. Not a bad deal when you consider the filter is only $9.99 (based on Amazon.com pricing of August, 2011).  The biggest advantage of this design is that you can fill up from any municipal tap source you find. A tap at the office, your home, a water fountain at the park.

Filtrete Docking Station:

This device is similar to a pitcher or jug type filter, except it fills 4 reusable water bottles with filtered tap water. This eliminates tastes, odors, chlorine, lead, sediment, and a few other things from tap water.  Unlike the Brita bottle filter, the Filtrete docking station can filter a lot more water per filter change – 750 bottled compared to 150. The advantage of this design is that if you have more than one person in the house, you can fill up each morning or each outing and you can all take good tasting filtered water with you. The disadvantage is that once that filtered water is gone, you must return home to filter more. The price is right, for only $33.00 (Based on Amazon.com pricing August 2011).

All in all, both the Brita bottle with Filter and the Filtrete Docking Station are excellent devices and both help you save a lot of money and the environment by replacing your need for bottled water. My preference is the Brita, because I drink a lot of water during the day and I do not have a lot of people in my household. But if you have more than two people, or say, a few children who play sports, the Filtrete Docking Station is more economical for you.

Click here to learn more about the Brita Bottle

Click here to learn more about the Filtrete Docking Station

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