Ecousable's filtered stainless steel bottle

There's a stainless steel water bottle with a filter right in the cap. How good is it?

Thu, Feb 12 2009 at 2:15 PM EST

Ecousable has come out with the “world's only Environmentally Safe Stainless Filtered Water Bottle.” They call it the ech₂o filtered watered bottle. The company was kind enough to send me one to test, and I’ve been using it for about a month now.

By now, we all know how harmful the one time use plastic water bottles are to the environment. The water inside of them is rarely any better than the water that comes out of your tap. Still, people are concerned about the quality of their tap water. And that concern doesn’t come without merit. Just the other day, a University of Minnesota study showed that road salt residue is seeping into groundwater.

Ecousable’s ech₂o is designed to eliminate the concern about things like road salt contaminating your drinking water because it has a built in filter in the cap that “removes 99.99% of pollutants that maybe found in drinking water for up to 50 gallons.”

Each 25 oz. 304 food grade stainless steel water bottle is non-leaching, BPA-free, reusable, lightweight, and taste-neutral. All parts are made of FDA approved materials and are environmentally safe.

The Ionic-Adsorption Micro-Filtration System is an entire water filtration plant within a portable bottle. The patented Ionic-Absorption Micro-Filtration reduces up to 99.99% of the following zones of contamination.

Okay, sounds like a good idea, but how good is the actual bottle? I’ve tried several brands of reusable stainless steel bottles, and I’ll say that this one ranks up with the best of them.

· It doesn’t leak (I’ve been sent ones to test in the past that have leaked).

· It’s attractive.

· Once you run the filter through cold water for a few minutes before your first use, it’s undetectable in the flavor of the water (I learned that the hard way. In my excitement of having a new toy, I didn’t read the directions. I drank first without rinsing out the filter. Yuck.)

· It’s offered in six colors – metallic green, metallic red, pink, purple, stainless steel, and stainless steel swirled – something for everyone.

· One filter will replace up to 378 half liter plastic water bottles; change the filter, it will replace another 378.

The cost of one ech₂o is $44.99. Yes, that is a bit steep, but this is the cost of their filtered water bottle. Ecousable also offers traditional stainless steel bottles that are in the $15 range.

I was told that I’ll know when the filter cap needs to be replaced because the flow of water will become hampered. That hasn’t happened yet. According to the website, that should be after approximately six months of use. Ecousable will be offering replacement filter caps on their website, but they do not have them available just yet, and I do not know how much they will cost.

The only downside I see to the ech₂o, and this is a personal preference, is that the cap only comes in a sports bottle model. That means that you have to suck to get the water out because you cannot squeeze a stainless steel bottle. This isn’t unique to Ecousable’s caps. Any sports cap on any stainless steel bottle works this way.

I like to take water bottles with me to meetings, and it’s not the most attractive thing to be sucking water out of a bottle around a conference table. I’d like to see an alternative filter cap that has a different drinking design.

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