My guess is if you're posting here you're not necessarily the target market for this product. You might be better with just a Sawyer squeeze or other off the shelf filter. If you're looking for clarifying turbid water you could get a bottle of alum from the grocery store and use that as a flocculant. Or if you wanted heavier duty there's "Water Wizard for River Runners" which is made of stuff which is often used for wastewater treatment.

If you’re in the US or Canada, you probably want something else for water purification in your emergency kit (iodine or a good filter or the equipment to boil water)— bleach (including the calcium hypochlorite in this stuff) won’t adequately kill Giardia cysts or Cryptosporidium.

When my scout troop is teaching the Emergency Preparedness merit badge, we often do an exercise on bulk treatment of water beyond what is practical to filter with the portable filters we take on backpacking trips. We use alum as a flocculant, then sand to filter, then battery-powered UV sterilization (while noting that leaving clear water out in full sun for a few hours will accomplish the same dose as stirring a UV lamp through a bucket for a minute or two). Alum isn't exactly a common household item these days and the UV lamp certainly isn't, but it does make for a cheap and compact kit that can treat a lot of water with relatively little time and effort.

> Alum isn't exactly a common household item these days

You can often find it in the spice section. People use it to make pickles.

McCormick/Schilling sells it, among other major brands.

Walmart sells "Hoosier Hill Farm" brand for about $15/pound.

My point was more that it isn't something people are likely to already have on hand at home. It's certainly readily available and extremely cheap for this purpose, but you need to actually buy some before a disaster hits.

Depends on the family!

Hoarding the clearance pickling supplies after the season is over is a long tradition in my family. :)

Chlorine will kill giardia. You just have to wait somewhat longer.

Giardia is definitely present in Pakistan, where this is being manufactured.

Unfortunately it seem to not to work in Chinese giardias.

Giardiosis happen rather routinely even in places like Shanghai. Personal experience.

The quality of tap water in Shanghai is pretty bad even by Chinese standards - there is a reason why boiling water is the norm.

I picked up a case of Crypto during a day trip to Milwaukee for a lunch meeting back in the 90s (they had a water treatment issue).

0/10, would not recommend.

You could also ask your local water provider what their emergency plan is. Some parts of their emergency plan are confidential, but they are required by law to have a plan. The larger operators already have their Risk and Resiliency plans in effect, and smaller operators have a July deadline for their R&R plans.

It's been my experience that water operators take a lot of pride in their work and are happy to educate the public about what it is they do.

I'd rather prepare myself than rely on my provider's emergency plan. I can be sure if my house survives the disaster and I have my own purifier (whether this product or something else), then I'll be able to have drinking water. But even if my provider has a great plan, disaster plans aren't truly tested until the disaster strikes, so that plan may not be sufficient.

I have both stored fresh water as well as a filter in case of emergency, I'm not counting on my local water authority being able to pump water uphill to where I live for long during a disaster.

That's wise. Still curious what local utility says. Might be eye opening. I used to supervise a treatment plant, we were well prepared to deal with disasters.

FYI a flocculant can be used to settle out really dirty water, it needs to be mixed well to work correctly. Flocculants include ferric and alum. Bleach is typically used as a disinfectant to reduce bacteria and viruses. Oocysts are not destroyed by chlorine and have to be filtered out. Most surface water treatment plants use sand filters. Granulated carbon filters are increasingly common to remove trace chemical contaminants, but these will also adsorb chlorine, advise disinfectant after the filter step.

How is it better than existing water purification tabs or a filter like lifestraw?

Water purification tablets are either chlorine (most common) or iodine based. So essentially this is the equivalent of a chlorine based tablet plus some flocculent to cause sediment to settle out of the water.

A lifestraw is better at removing bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. See page 7 here. https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/hwt...

I don't know the cost of lifestraws to NGOs, but I guess they're more expensive. And you need one lifestraw per person, where these sachets can do bulk buckets of water.

Well, for one you get 10 l of water at a time. For another, most water purification tablets taste horrible, and don't do anything about sediment.

The 'zon has it, but at an outrageous markup over the 3.5 cents per packet mentioned in the article.

3.5 cents to PRODUCE.

Not to ship halfway around the world, warehouse, pick, package and ship.

Each sachet of P&G™ is provided to global emergency relief organizations or non-governmental organizations at a cost of 3.5 US cents, not including shipping from Pakistan by ocean container. Transport, distribution, education, and community motivation can add significantly to program costs. Sachets are generally sold at product cost recovery for 10 US cents each, for a cost of 1 US cent per liter treated.

10 cents for 10 liters, or a penny a liter. still a lot more than 3.5 cents, but not crazy.

Yes. 10 cents is not two dollars, which some Amazon sellers are charging.

Especially when people pay $2 for a half liter of Poland Spring!

So you're arguing that it costs two bucks to ship it?

Yeah, no.

As the other poster noted, the article explicitly says that the retail price, including shipping, is about 10 cents.

The ‘zon????

amazon! probably

But why on earth call it that? It's the same number of syllables, more letters, additional punctuation and also not in common use. So odd.

> powdered ferric sulfate (a flocculant) and calcium hypochlorite

Are you saying those two components are too expensive on Amazon?..

You could certainly brew your own.

I was referring to the fact that Amazon sellers are charging 50 cents to two dollars (!) for a packet that is sold by the manufacturer for 3.5 cents.

Puts it in line with all the other overpriced outdoors gear.