Clean drinking water is on everyone's agenda, today. Yet rain is so often perceived as an inconvenience, taken for granted when it falls at the wrong time. In much of the world, hurricanes and tropical storms accompanied by tidal surge often cause flooding, contaminating ground water and reservoirs, leaving it unfit to drink. So much water, but so little that is potable.

The umbrella is a device that has provided protection from the sun and rain for millennia. Could we not expand its versatility, and use it not just to repel rain, but to collect it, filter it, and make it safe to drink?

A funnel-shaped umbrella, looking not unlike a chantarelle mushroom, a hollow central tube, and activated carbon filter are the simple modifications necessary to complete the functional transformation. Moulded internal threads allow standard-size drink bottles to screw into the bottle of the filter tube, providing a convenient and available way of collecting water that also serves to re-use existing materials.

By attaching multiple functions to the object, it is seen as having more value, less likely to merely be tossed aside when it is no longer immediately useful. Furthermore, with an all-plastic construction made of polylactic acid blends, this is an object that is fully compostable in microbial soil, nourishing life even after in its "death."