Water purification is something we normally think about in terms of removing chlorine to help the water we drink to be a little healthier, or to improve the taste. What if it was more to do with being fit for human consumption, though? Water purification here is on a much more basic level – the difference between life and death today, not if it has an aftertaste or might contribute to health issues in twenty years time.
If the water supplies become contaminated, or fail altogether, it’s good to know how to improve the water quality. Just imagine not being able to give your children safe drinking water. As you’ll already know, that’s a reality in large parts of the world, but could it happen in America too? Let’s hope not, but as you’ll read elsewhere on this website, there’s plenty of very real situations that could trigger this threat. So, what should you do?
A simple solution is to boil water before drinking it. It’s not a total guarantee of safety, but will put you in a much better position to be able to survive, at least in the short term until you’ve got better options available. Boiling water kills bacteria, that’s the main benefit, but you can also clean water too – especially if you can find a way to funnel the steam away into a separate, clean container. It’s surprising how much debris remains in water with this method, if you continue until all the water is transferred as steam.
Water is a vital part of life, perhaps second only to breathing the air around us. It’s said that we can get by for weeks without food, but only a couple of days at best without water. We’ve seen countless reports of people getting lost at sea only to think they’re helping themselves by drinking sea water, whereas they’re almost certainly causing themselves more harm. Simple castaway survival tips could have taught them helpful water purification techniques.
In this section you’ll learn about a range of these methods, some of which you may choose to practice and even implement at home, but more importantly that you can learn to be able to implement in a survival situation. There are lots of approaches you can use, so be sure to dedicate your time to learning the differences and why you might choose to use one over another. As with everything about survival – doing a little is far better than nothing, as the vast majority of Americans, and indeed the rest of the world’s population, are very poorly prepared, if at all.