Action water filter: what are you really buying?

Reading time: ~12 minutes

Which water filter does Action sell?

On 9 November 2026 those two items are the only water filter products Action shows under this search term. The jug stands at 4.7 out of 5 stars from 9 reviews, the cartridges at 4.9 from 31 reviews. The chain also sells a hot water dispenser at €29.95 with a small built-in filter, but that is an appliance for boiling water and not a water filter in the sense most people mean.

Important to know before you read on: this is a pitcher, not a system connected to your water supply. That distinction determines everything that follows, because a jug only filters what you pour into it yourself. If you want to survey which filter types exist and what sets them apart first, our pillar page what the different water filters differ in lays them out.

What stands out most for this keyword is who gives the answer. On the entire first page of Google on 9 November 2026 there is not a single editorial article. You find two Action product pages, a TikTok video with 154.5 thousand views asking whether the filter removes iron taste and PFAS, a post in a Facebook group with forty replies, a Black Friday overview from MediaMarkt, a replacement filter for a cat drinking fountain at bol.com and a price comparison site. The question is popular, then, and is answered properly nowhere.

How does the cartridge in a jug like this work?

A filter cartridge for a pitcher almost always contains two materials. Activated carbon binds organic molecules to the carbon surface, including the substances that give taste and odour. There is also an ion exchanger: a resin that removes calcium and magnesium ions from the water and gives sodium or hydrogen ions back. That last part is why water from a filter jug tastes softer.

The water passes through purely on gravity. You fill the funnel, wait a minute or two, and the filtered water collects at the bottom. The same technology is in the gravity filters with large reservoirs and in the dispensers with a tap, only with more volume and sometimes a different filter medium.

There is a limit to what gravity can do. Because there is no pressure, the medium has to be loose enough to let water through. A fine carbon block, as in a system connected to the water supply, can be much denser and therefore hold back smaller particles. That difference between loose granulate and a pressed block is the main reason a jug and a fixed filter do not perform the same, even if both contain “activated carbon”.

How these technologies relate to each other is set out in the overview of how a water filter works.

What does the Action water filter remove from your tap water, and what doesn’t it?

Here you have to make a distinction that appears in almost no article about cheap filters: the difference between what a technology can do in theory and what a specific product demonstrably does. Activated carbon can in principle bind chlorine, flavour compounds, some of the organic substances and, with a fine enough medium, some of the PFAS. But whether a particular cartridge actually does so only becomes clear from a test on that cartridge.

Standards exist for filter systems. NSF International describes three that matter in this market: NSF/ANSI 42 tests the reduction of substances with no health effect, such as chlorine, taste, odour, particles, iron and manganese. NSF/ANSI 53 tests health-related substances such as lead, chromium and volatile organic compounds, and has more than fifty separate claims. NSF/ANSI 401 covers emerging substances, including medicine residues and pesticides, with a maximum of fifteen substances per assessment.

The product description that Google shows from the Action page on 9 November 2026 names none of those standards and no test report. That does not make the product bad, but it does mean you take the promise on the packaging on trust. For a €9.99 purchase not everyone minds. For the question “is there PFAS in my water”, they do.

Chlorine and limescale: does the promise on the packaging hold up?

Action describes the jug with the sentence that you remove “substances such as limescale and chlorine” from tap water with it. That is a text that belongs with an international product, and in the Netherlands half of it falls away.

There is no chlorine in it

The Netherlands is the only country in Europe that structurally adds no chlorine to drinking water. The RIVM writes literally about Dutch tap water: it contains no chlorine and its quality is among the best in the world. About 60 percent of that water is made from groundwater, the rest from surface water. Anyone in Spain or France who removes the chlorine with a filter jug solves a real problem. Here there is no chlorine to filter away. What that means for taste is covered in our article on filtering chlorine from tap water.

It removes limescale from the jug, not from your home

The limescale promise does hold, but more narrowly than you would think. The ion exchanger removes calcium and magnesium from the water you pour into the funnel. That water then sits in the jug. The pipe to your kettle, your shower and your washing machine gets none of it. Your kettle therefore keeps scaling up, unless you fill it exclusively with water from the jug.

Vewin, the association of Dutch water companies, classifies hardness by the number of millimoles of calcium and magnesium per litre: up to 0.71 is called very soft, up to 1.43 soft, up to 2.14 medium and above that fairly hard. Many Dutch water companies already soften the water centrally, so the starting value in large parts of the country is lower than people think. What it is where you live is in water hardness per municipality. If it is the limescale in your appliances you care about, descaling your kettle helps more than any drinking water filter.

Also worth saying explicitly, because we are asked about it weekly: a drinking water filter is not a water softener and does not prevent limescale in the home. That applies to the Action jug and equally to the PureFilter Mineral+. The difference between those two things is explained in water softener or water filter.

Does it remove PFAS? That is TikTok’s question

The most-viewed source on this product is a TikTok video with 154.5 thousand views that asks in its title whether the Action filter removes iron taste and PFAS. The creator tasted that the iron taste was gone. That is an honest observation about taste and says nothing about PFAS, because you cannot taste PFAS.

The figures that matter are at the RIVM. For twenty different PFAS, the legally permitted amount in drinking water is 100 nanograms per litre. In addition, the RIVM advises a guideline value of 4.4 nanograms per litre, expressed as PFOA equivalents. That is a difference of more than a factor of twenty between what is legally allowed and what the RIVM advises from a health perspective, and that is precisely where the unease of recent years comes from.

A standard carbon cartridge in a funnel has not been tested for those substances, and at nanograms per litre “not tested” is no detail. If you want to know which technologies do measurably lower PFAS and by what percentages, read filtering PFAS: which technology works. If you want to know whether it is an issue in your region, see our PFAS page or the PFAS map of the Netherlands.

For comparison, and this is a figure we can back with a test report: the PureFilter Mineral+ reduces PFAS by 83 to 85 percent, including PFOA and PFOS, as measured by an independent lab. At PureFilter we see that since last year’s PFAS news, this is the question customers start with first.

Action also sells a water softener: what is the difference?

Alongside the filter jug, Action has a small water softener on the shelf, and the two are often confused in searches. They are different devices with a different purpose.

• A water filter: removes substances from the water you are going to drink. The aim is taste and, with a tested system, the reduction of specific contaminants.
• A water softener: exchanges calcium and magnesium for sodium, with the aim of less limescale. The aim is your equipment and your pipework, not your glass of water.

So if you are looking for a solution to white rims in your kettle and cloudy glasses, a drinking water filter is the wrong tool. For that, removing limescale deposits is the practical route. If it is about what you drink, the filter is the right direction. We do not sell water softeners ourselves, so we have no stake in either answer.

What does the Action water filter cost per litre?

The jug is a one-off €9.99. That is why people buy it, and it is rightly a low threshold. The real costs are in the cartridges: €5.95 for two means €2.98 per cartridge.

How many litres a cartridge manages depends on the model and on the hardness of your water. The calculation below assumes two litres of drinking water per day, so a good 730 litres per year, and two common lifespans. Check the lifespan printed on your packaging before you apply these numbers to yourself.

That bottom figure comes from the key figures of Vewin: the average household rate for 2025 is €1.97 per cubic metre, excluding tax on tap water and VAT. That is about €0.002 per litre. An Action cartridge therefore makes your litre of drinking water roughly ten to fifteen times as expensive as the water itself.

Put that next to the fixed solution. A replacement filter for the PureFilter Mineral+ costs €65.00 separately, or €48.00 per delivery with the Filter Plan for 1 to 3 people, and lasts up to 12 months for 1 to 3 people and up to 6 months for 4 or more. Per litre that comes to €0.0033 to €0.0043. The difference is that a fixed filter filters all the cold water you draw, and a jug only what you pour in by hand. If you want to work this out for your own household, the full calculation is in what a water filter costs per household and in what a cubic metre of water costs.

Points you won’t read on the packaging

A saturated cartridge works against you

Activated carbon fills up. If a cartridge stays in too long, it not only stops holding anything back, it can also release previously bound substances again. That is why every manufacturer names a replacement period and why that period is not advice but a condition. How that works out per filter type is covered in how often you need to replace a water filter.

A jug stands warm, and that is a hygiene matter

Filtered water standing on the counter is water with no disinfecting effect at room temperature. Put the jug in the fridge, clean it regularly and do not leave day-old water in it. How long you can responsibly keep filtered water, we looked into in how long you can keep tap water.

You lose minerals that carry the taste

The ion exchanger takes calcium and magnesium with it, and those are precisely the minerals that make water taste full. Some people therefore find the result a little flat. Why those minerals matter is explained in minerals in drinking water.

The daily work adds up

Fill, wait, fill again. For a one-person household that is nothing. For a family that drinks a few litres a day between them, and that is roughly the amount from how much water you need per day, it is one more chore every day. In practice that is why filter jugs end up in a drawer.

Action filter or a fixed filter: the comparison

The prices in the middle column come from the shopping block that Google shows for this search on 9 November 2026: the Brita Marella XL at €19.00, the Aluna Cool at €19.99, Maxtra Pro cartridges at €19.99 for three, the 1.7-litre ZeroWater at €37.95 and the 8.2-litre Brita Flow at €69.99. What those brands deliver themselves, we looked into in the Brita water filter review and in the ZeroWater review for the Netherlands.

Buying advice: who is that €9.99 well spent for?

To be fair: there are situations in which the Action jug is exactly enough.

• You want to know whether you taste the difference. For ten euros you test whether you like filtered water, without changing anything in your kitchen. As an entry-level test, that is money well spent.
• You rent or live somewhere temporarily. If you may not touch the pipework, a jug is the only option that always works. What is allowed in a rented home is covered in water filter in a rented home.
• You drink little water per day. Refilling one jug a day is no trouble if you drink half a litre from it.

And there are situations in which you cannot get by with it. If you drink a few litres a day with more people, want to see on paper which substances were tested for, or PFAS is the reason you are searching for this, then a cartridge in a funnel runs up against its limits. Then a filter for those who want to go further than a jug is the logical next step, and our selection guide which water filter suits you can help you get started. If you are still unsure whether you need one at all, start with do I need a water filter or with the comparison at best water filter.

A practical point: connecting a fixed filter is less work than people think. The PureFilter Mineral+ goes onto the cold water line in 5 to 10 minutes with one pair of water pump pliers and without a plumber, and you change the filter cartridge later with the key that comes with it. Step by step it is in the guide to connecting a water filter yourself. If you have a boiling water tap, see the Quooker page (Quooker is a Dutch maker of boiling water taps), because the filter then goes in before the Quooker system.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

The Action water filter is neither a bad buy nor a miracle cure. For €9.99 plus €2.98 per cartridge you get a filter jug that softens the taste of your tap water and removes some of the limescale from the water in the jug. Buyers are happy with it, and as an entry-level test to discover whether you like filtered water, it is the best ten euros you can spend.

Where it falls short is exactly where today’s question lies. Chlorine does not need to come out in the Netherlands. Limescale in your home it does not solve. And PFAS, the reason half of TikTok is looking at this product, is a substance for which this cartridge has simply not been tested. With 100 nanograms per litre as the legal standard and 4.4 nanograms as the RIVM guideline value, that is not nitpicking but the heart of the matter.

If you want to move from taste comfort to certainty, the question shifts to a system with a test report that filters all your cold tap water instead of one jug at a time. How that works, with what warranty and at what annual cost, you can read at purefilter.nl, and the practical questions about installation and maintenance are in the frequently asked questions.