With concerns about the cleanliness and safety of water nowadays – from Thames Water’s shameful sewage to the contaminated drinking water of Flint – it’s unsurprising that many people are turning to water filters for peace of mind.
We were offered the ZeroWater 12 Cup for review as a water filter jug, but – at least by British standards – it’s not a jug, it’s a water dispenser. A jug has a handle and a lip for pouring. This dispenser has a tap, and whilst that might be convenient for some, it does limit where you can store your dispenser, as it needs to be situated on the edge of a surface so that you can fit a glass or cup under the tap, and with clear space above, in order to remove the lid and fill it.
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In terms of design it’s a little unwieldy. The lid is rather stiff to remove and refit, and the reservoir section at the top needs to be refilled several times before the filtered water section below is completely full. This is a little inconvenient; most filter jugs work on a half and half basis, meaning that you fill the top section completely and when the water is filtered it fully fills the bottom section.
ZeroWater boasts ‘Ready-Read Technology’ – a digital reader that checks the quality of the water. I tested the same cup of UK tap water three times over the space of about a minute and got three very different readings – rather puzzling – but all suggesting that the water was far from perfect. The digital reader fits into the body of the dispenser and the idea is that you test the filtered water as it is dispensed. It should read zero to show that the water has filtered out contaminants, and this was indeed the case when I tried it out. After a certain amount of uses, when the reading reaches a certain level, it is indicating that the filter needs to be replaced.
The booklet that comes with the dispenser has been written for American users of the product, with references to US water standards; no effort has been made to refer to UK water standards and how the ZeroWater digital reader relates to these. This lack of salient information is somewhat disappointing.
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The biggest selling point of ZeroWater filters is its “five stage filtration” cartridge which removes “up to 99.6% of Total Dissolved Solids” in water, along with various “forever chemicals” and other contaminants. It makes a lot of big claims, which does make it an attractive purchase prospect. The average user or reviewer, however, has no way of knowing how many of these claims are accurate or might be overblown.
The ZeroWater 12 Cup / 2.8 L Ready-Read (TM) Jug – again not an actual jug, but a dispenser – retails at £44.99 with a replacement cartridge costing £19.99. Is this cost effective? It depends on your budget. Are the filter cartridges recyclable? We couldn’t find anything on the ZeroWater website to tell us. What does the filtered water taste like? Different, but actually rather less pleasant than the local tap water. Surprising, really.
The ZeroWater 12 Cup / 2.8L Ready-Read (TM) Jug is available now from ZeroWater and various retailers.