The LifeSaver Jerrycan on Expedition with Max Adventures

Case Study: The use of the LifeSaver jerrycan in an expedition environment

Parties Involved: Max Adventure – The Expedition Specialists and LifeSaver – Manufacturers of leading portable water filtration equipment

Max Adventure are the expedition, adventure and remote location specialists. From showcasing brands to the world through exciting adventures to facilitating film shoots in the planet’s most extreme environments, MA is a single point solution for expedition, adventure and remote location needs. Max Adventure is run by Mac Mackenney who has been using LifeSaver jerrycans on his expeditions since 2010.

Locations where Max Adventure has used LifeSaver products since 2010:

England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Hungary, Romania, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia.

Project: Siberia Challenge: www.maxadventure.co.uk/siberia-challenge/

Date: 2014

Duration: 2 months, 60 days exactly

Water source being filtered: The water source was primarily water taken from normal taps where the quality could not be vouched for. Water was also taken from wells, rivers and streams

Turbidity (clarity) of the water being filtered: The water was mostly clear for the majority of the time

Number of jerrycan units used: Three jerrycans provided clean water for 10 expedition participants. One jerrycan was issued per vehicle for safety reasons in case the team got separated. One jerrycan alone would have serviced 10 people as it has the capacity to produce 20,000 litres of clean drinking water in total

Volume of water filtered per person: 5 litres of water per person, per day was filtered

Approx total volume of water filtered: 50 litres of water a day was filtered from the jerrycan for the group of 10 people.  This equates to 3,000 litres over the course of the 60-day expedition

Testimonial:

“ To ensure that all water was safe to drink, each of the 3 Vauxhall Vivaro vans on our 12,000 mile ‘Siberia Challenge’ to far-eastern Russia was equipped with a LifeSaver jerrycan. These 18.5 litre containers use air pressure via a simple hand pump to force water through a micron filter, so removing all harmful parasites as well as other impurities. This clever and robust system requires no additional chemicals to be added to the water, so remaining free from strong chlorine and fluoride tastes.

Max Adventure has been using LifeSaver jerrycan’s on all of our expeditions since 2010. With the ability to turn the most dirty and heavily infected water into clean drinking water, this is vital to the safety of our team and the success of our expeditions”. – Mac Mackenney, Max Adventure

Q&A with Mac Mackenney

How was the jerrycan used?

“We would refill the jerrycan every day from the cleanest source that we could find and then it was decantered into 0.6 litre Camelbak bottles (ones with drinking straws) every few hours”.

Did your use of a LifeSaver jerrycan replace the need for chlorine tablets and boiling of water?

“Absolutely, we just filtered the water and drank it”.

In your opinion why do you prefer the LifeSaver jerrycan to other water treatment options?  

“Being primarily vehicle based, weight is less of an issue to us, so we are looking for practicality in addition to the obvious safety of only drinking clean water. No other system as yet has offered the usability of a normal jerrycan (which all expedition teams have traditionally used) with the added advantage of filtering water. It’s [The jerrycan] just the right size for vehicle based expeditions and stacks alongside other jerrycans in the same racking and tie down systems”.