Plastic Free Water Filtration with Binchotan Charcoal

The Binchotan Charcoal used in the Sol filter sticks is created by burning oak branches at extremely high heat. It is then rapidly cooled leaving a porous burned stick of timber. It is not a new concept to use activated charcoal (also called activated carbon) to filter out impurities. Our air purifiers from InovaAir use an activated carbon filter, in the E20 model, there's 6kg of carbon to filter impurities from the air, including outgassing from petrochemicals. Activated charcoal, is used in emergency medicine for some kinds of poisoning to help prevent it from being absorbed from the stomach through to the body (source Mayo Clinic).

Countless microscopic cavities in the activated charcoal stick trap and hold chemicals and toxins from your water so it's not longer in what you're drinking, it's now held in the charcoal filter stick.  The stick needs to be prepped before use by boiling it for 10 minutes and repeating this every 2 weeks. Be With regular use, the stick will last you around 3 months, at which point you can bury it in a garden bed to boost nutrients or put it in a cupboard to absorb moisture and odours. Some of the best shoe deodorisers use activated charcoal so you could even stuff it in your gym shoes!

The main pro of using a binchotan charcoal filter to filter your drinking water is the zero plastic aspect. The next one is your ability to easily drink from the bottle while you're out and about. We  have road tested and rejected multiple filter water bottles in the past that require you to suck the water through a filter as you drink. I have joked more than once that it's like trying to suck a golf ball through a garden house. Camelbak used to have one and got rid of it. So have many other brands. They're a nice idea in theory but very difficult to use. With the binchotan charcoal sticks,  you can either just leave it in the water bottle while you're drinking, or pull it out. We recommend leaving it in unless you're decanting the whole bottle in to a glass to drink from.

With any positive there's usually a negative to balance it out. The charcoal filter stick is no exception. Where a filter that has water pass through it can filter a litre of water in a minute or two, you need to let water sit with a charcoal filter, preferably overnight. The filtering is not quick. At a bare minimum, you need around 2 hours to have any effect. Other benefits you can get from filtration that has the water pass through are not found in a charcoal stick. These include the removal of fluoride and the addition of trace minerals being put back in to the water.

With regular use, each stick will last around 3 months. After the 3 months is up, it can be useful for other things, including moisture absorption in damp places (inside your running shoes, your closet, bathroom), absorb odours (same places, great for shoes) or you can bury it in your garden to break down and put nutrients in your soil.