For example, the lever to open the top reservoir lines up with a divot in the handle — it’s a natural motion to hold the pitcher and open the top to refill it all with one hand. It fits anywhere in my fridge and filters three cups of water in four minutes. A specialized alumina filter brita filter pitcher can also work, as seen in community water projects in India that remove excessive naturally-occurring fluoride. There are now filter pitchers that use alumina, but they’re very slow — the Clearly Filtered alumina filter takes more than ten minutes to filter one cup of water.
One of the best features is that the lever to open the lid is on the handle — so if you do need to hold it with two hands, you can still open the top for refilling. When designing the pitcher, we paid special attention to the handle to make sure all hands brita filter pitcher could get a solid, comfortable grip and pour with ease. Brita rates their standard filter for 40 gallons, and the new Longlast Filter at 120 gallons. That’s compared to our tested average of 15 gallons for a ZeroWater filter before it becomes ineffective.
Even if your wrists are plenty strong, the motion can feel a bit precarious—the last thing you want when filling a glass of water. To see how well the LifeStraw dealt with sediment, Tim used hydrogen peroxide to rapidly convert a piece of #0000 steel wool to fine particles of rust. After 40 cups (2.5 gallons) of this enticing brew went through it, the rust was all used up, but the filter was still working, albeit slightly more slowly than at the start of the test. In contrast with installation of Pur’s filters (which clearly indicate when they’ve been installed incorrectly), when you’re installing Brita’s filters it’s pretty easy to mess up. If you don’t give it that shove, unfiltered water may leak down the filter’s sides when you fill the upper tray—meaning your “filtered” water actually isn’t. We recommend Pur’s Pur Plus Pitcher Replacement Filter or the Pur Pitcher Filter because both have excellent ANSI/NSF certifications, and we found them to be less prone to clogging than the Brita Longlast+.
We also tested each filter to determine how long it would take, on average, to filter one cup of water. While you might not be worried about this result, it’s worth considering how long it takes to get more filtered water if you’re ever going to fill bottles before a trip or serve water at a party. In order to determine the best water filter, we’ve used a combination of quantitative and qualitative tests to compare seven different water filters, and we’ve compared them with faucet-mount and reverse osmosis systems.
Looking back at all of the testing we’ve done, we think your choice should be based on a good understanding of the tradeoffs, rather than an assumption that one product will be the best for everyone. Water pitchers certified by the WQA have a number of certifications that ensure numerous common pollutants are removed. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, activated carbon filters do not remove bacteria. On the other hand, a distillation unit does remove bacteria, but they can be quite expensive. When it came to pouring, the water pitchers with proportional handles performed best.