Sure, you can buy a pre-made water filter set up for your kitchen counter or home office, but they’re often just cheesy miniature water cooler look-alikes or constructed of various forms of plastic covering enigmatic filters made of who knows what. If you want a countertop water filter that’s not quite such a mystery, why not make your own?
In a pinch, you can fit an unbleached coffee filter filled with activated charcoal into your coffee maker’s filter basket, hold it over your beverage container, and channel tap water through the contraption. That’s really just a short-term solution, though, not an efficient way to keep batches of drinking water on hand.
To really connect with nature, make a water filter out of crushed, dry clay mixed with old coffee grounds or tea leaves and a bit of water. Form the mixture into a pot shape and let it dry in the sun for a day or so. Leave your clay pot over an open flame or fire in a kiln for an hour or so to allow small pores to develop so water can pass through. Collect and store your clean clay-filtered water in a pretty glazed pot right on the counter to be ladled out as needed.
If you’re looking for brawn over beauty, one of the easiest and most popular ways to make a water filter out of recycled objects is the “two-liter-bottle” method (you may have done this as a science experiment in school). You’ll need an empty plastic two-liter bottle, a drinking straw, gravel, sand, and some cotton batting. Check out the step-by-step instructions for a complete rundown on how to put everything together. Like I said, it won’t win any prizes in the beauty department but it will certainly get the job done.
Image: Tom Raftery