Radical UV Water Purifier Wins Innovation Award

Here's something that looks like a genuinely innovative and useful invention for outdoors people and travellers - the SteriPen is a hand-held water purifier that emits a UV light which purifies water in seconds.

Weighing just 205 grammes including four AA batteries, the device takes around 45 seconds to purify 16 oz of water. The UV light kills the DNA of water-borne viruses, protozoa and bacteria including nasties like Hepatitis, Giardia, Cholera and Cryptosporidium and the rest.

That means you can avoid using expensive filters or chemicals like iodine with potentially unpleasant side-effects plus it's quicker than either alternative method. If there is sediment in the water, you can combine the SteriPen with a water-bottle pre-filter to remove the bits and bobs. Plus it's all been lab tested and shown to work.

No more filtering or treating, just zap suspect water and drink it down. The only real weakness is its reliance on battery power.

The device has just won the Outdoor Writers' Guild's Derryck Draper award for the best and most innovative product of the year, even if we'd never heard of it. UK importers Rosker and the manufacturers themselves were understandably chuffed.

The SteriPen is just the first of an explosion of models based on the same technology - there's a lighter more compact model due out late this month - and retails for £90 or complete with a pre-filter and one-litre Nalgene bottle for £100. The new, lighter Adventurer model will cost £120 when available.

More about the SteriPen at www.steripen.com details of stockists in the UK from importers Rosker at www.rosker.co.uk