Activated carbon

This is from the Water preparation thread. There was a article posted there
about the use of carbon. I have only used carbon to remove specific
things.... such as medicine or suspected poison (like once in college when a
roommates girlfriend who use enough hairspray there was a residue on the
glass!) Even then I took it out after a day or so as it becomes "full" of
whatever is being removed. I can also talk about things like removing
micro-nutrients, blah blah blah.....Well the second article here talks about
it very differently. It also states you can just dry it out and use it
again?!?! Now I really don't buy that, the stuff that gets absorbed has got
to go somewhere!?!? You can use it for years? Thoughts? Experience? anyone
read this article? Here is the URL for it.
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/...%20carbon.html

Thanks all!

Tre'