Guyot Designs TapGuard
The ever-dependable and ubiquitous water bottle company, Nalgene, has spawned an entire industry of aftermarket accessories.
Some are useful like the SplashGuard, which is particularly helpful in the car, but most are superfluous at best. Then there are some products like this one which just don't make any sense at all.
This is the Guyot Designs TapGuard, which, according to the product description, removes "chlorine, iodine, and other bad chemicals (up to 95%)" from tap water.
This despite the simple fact that tap water is perfectly safe to drink (and tastes fine too if you ask me). I'm no water resources expert, but it seems to me these guys are exploiting the same fears that have propped up the bottled water industry for years.
They've tried to get on the good side of the green issue. They say "each TapGuard carries enough carbon offsets to account for more than 50 lbs. of verifiable greenhouse gas emissions reductions." That's great but it doesn't change the fact that this seems like a very unnessecary piece of plastic.
Via Uncrate.
Thanks so much for the review.
I wanted to point out two aspects of the Tapguard that are really important to note. The first is that it makes all safe water taste better. This includes water purified in the backcountry with iodine or other often unpleasant tasting chemical solutions. The second is that our tapwater is absolutely safe, sometimes it just doesn’t taste very good. We really want to encourage people to re-use their water bottles and not buy bottled water. Frequently the taste of tapwater is less than ideal. Our goal with the tapguard is to make safe water taste better and to help people make environmentally sound decisions they can feel good about.
My pleasure. And thank you for reading! Good points for sure. If it helps people use less bottled water, that’s fantastic. I’ve just always thought tap water tastes just fine, myself. I even think iodine-purified water tastes kinda good. But I’m a weirdo on that one, I know. Good luck!