If you have a fridge and a freezer, you are among the privileged few with access to cold drinks and ice. The rest of the world makes do with room-temperature water. If the water that comes from the tap is safe to drink, you are part of an even smaller privileged minority who live in luxury while the rest of the world drinks dirty water and risks a multitude of water-borne killer diseases.

Hydration: Bare Essentials, What You Need To Know To Stay Alive

1 liter of water /day will lead to kidney failure. It’s not clever to think that this is a survival skill. The bare minimum is 2ltr/day under normal conditions. During heatwaves, water intake should increase to 3, 4, or 5 liters, with electrolytes and extra salt in your food. There’s a fine balance between remaining hydrated and washing the minerals out of your bloodstream. Electrolytes help replace those minerals. Hydration during extreme heat should also be with cold or iced water to help cool the body.

Turning Dirty Water Into Drinking Water

THE GOLD STANDARD FOR WATER PURIFICATION IS BOILING AFTER FILTRATION & CHEMICAL TREATMENT

The Lifestraw can be unreliable: “Sick walkers rescued after drinking river water on West Highland Way”.

“The first incident happened on Wednesday last week when the team evacuated a German man who was described as “incapacitated” near the remote Rowchoish Bothy.

He had been vomiting since the previous evening and was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.

“Then on Tuesday this week, volunteers from Lomond MRT were called out again, this time to an American man north of Rowardennan, by Loch Lomond, who had also spent the evening being sick and was unable to walk.”

“The team leader of Lomond Mountain Rescue, David Dodson, said both men had drunk from a stream around Conic Hill, most probably Burn of Mar, and became ill despite using straw-type filter systems – lightweight devices walkers use that remove contaminants as they drink.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98rpgqyqygo

LifeStraws, under certain conditions, are ineffective

XReadiness continues to recommend water purification tablets/filter (filter straws) for their Go-Bag. LifeStraws are for individuals. A Sawyer Squeeze is more suitable and reliable. =https://rebellion.global/assets/pdf/xreadiness/XReadiness_Booklet_V1.pdf (Page 6)

Water Purification Is A Multi-Step Process Requiring Organization To Avoid Cross-Contamination

THE GOLD STANDARD FOR WATER PURIFICATION IS BOILING AFTER FILTRATION & CHEMICAL TREATMENT

Collecting water starts with knowing your water source, followed by understanding the purification process for drinking.

Settling, Flocculation & filtering.

The Millbank Millbag is a cloth bag; it is a primitive mechanical system that removes larger contaminants, but it won’t remove microscopic suspended particles, viruses, cysts, bacteria, or amoebae.

There are 3 options for removing suspended impurities:

1. Gravity settling.
2. Filtration screens
3. Flocculants

Settling, Filtration & Flocculants

If you have the luxury of a clear-running stream, then the process of settling suspended particles isn’t necessary; to make it drinkable, treat it with iodine or chlorine, then boil it.

If the water is turbid (cloudy, milky, or opaque), it will require settling, which can be achieved naturally by gravity or with flocculants.

There are a couple of easy solutions for flocculation.

The Puribag: A professional disaster relief water purification system that can be air-dropped to people trapped by floodwater, giving them a low-cost water purification method in an emergency.

The Puribag system is designed to purify water with high levels of suspended particles that would otherwise clog most professional filter systems within minutes, rendering them useless. I use the Puribag because it is fast, and the P&G chemical flocculant also contains chlorine to ensure the water is free from other contaminants. Puribag is an alternative to moving vast amounts of bottled water into flood disaster zones.

Did You Know Flocculants Have Been Used in Antiquity To Purify Water?

Alum, or Phitkari, is a miracle stone, sometimes known as a shaver or deodorant stone. This mildly antiseptic, vasoconstrictive, astringent mineral has been used in medicine since the earliest Egyptian dynasties. Trace amounts of aluminum have been detected in ancient Egyptian mummy bones. Archaeologists suggest this is a result of the Egyptians using potassium alum to purify their drinking water and reduce cloudiness—a historical water treatment technique that left residual traces in their remains:

“Mohamed Kasem of Cairo University said the researchers detected lead, aluminum, and other elements in the bones that they think reflect the toxicity of the ancient Egyptian environment. The aluminum is thought to have come from the potassium alum compound added to drinking water to reduce cloudiness,” archaeology.org/

The Romans (and earlier Egyptians) used alum (aluminum sulfate) as a natural coagulant to purify drinking water. It acted as a flocculant, causing suspended mud and microscopic particles to clump together into larger, heavy masses (“floc”) that sank to the bottom, allowing for clearer water at the top

Alum clarifies water through a chemical process called coagulation and flocculation:

1. Neutralization: Alum is introduced into the muddy or turbid water.
2. Clumping: The alum neutralizes the electrical charges of microscopic, suspended silt and organic particles that make the water cloudy.
3. Settling: These neutralized particles aggregate into larger, heavier clumps (flocs).
4. Separation: Over a few hours, these heavy clumps sink to the bottom of the container, leaving the clear water above ready to be drawn off.

You can buy Alum (powder) or Phitkari (lumps) in most Asian supermarkets, and do this experiment at home:

Flocculation is what the water companies in the UK use to treat the water we get from the taps.

NEXT is filtration: Most preppers will tell you that you need to buy a filter, ideally the one they recommend so they get a commission. You don’t. You need knowledge.

Preppers won’t tell you that you can make a plant-based biodegradable water filter using plant Xylem. The Xylem Water Filter can remove “99.9% of bacteria and viruses” from synthetic test waters. In field tests, the filters removed coliform bacteria from contaminated spring, tap, and ground waters.”

The plant-based water filter was so important that engineers at MIT tested the idea with great success:

Caption: Xylem tissue in gymnosperm sapwood can be used for water filtration (as shown above). Xylem is composed of conduits interconnected by membranes that filter out contaminants in the water (bottom). Credits: Courtesy of N.R. Fuller, Sayo Studio

“The researchers took their techniques to India, where they made xylem filters from native trees and tested the filters with local users. Based on their feedback, the team developed a prototype of a simple filtration system, fitted with replaceable xylem filters that purified water at a rate of one liter per hour.” https://news.mit.edu/2021/filters-sapwood-purify-water-0325

DIY Xylem Water Filter Experiment In Action

Commercially bought filters need special care and wear out. The alternative is to understand the science behind capillary filtration and then imitate it with plants. I have made my own xylem water filters in my backyard lab. The 2 best branches were Pine and Ginkgo

REMEMBER: Boiling is the GOLD STANDARD for Safe Drinking Water

However, boiling does not remove:

• PFAS, including persistent compounds such as PFOA and PFOS
• Lead and other heavy metals
• Nitrate and nitrite
• Arsenic
• Industrial solvents
• Most pesticides
• Excess minerals and salts
• Oil and detergents

Boiling unfiltered dirty water in an emergency is not advisable:

• If the water is contaminated with microbes, boiling makes it safer.
• If the water contains chemical pollutants, boiling may do nothing, or even make the problem worse by concentrating them.
• If the water comes from a visibly dirty source, boiling does not remove sediment, dirt, or chemical residues.

Rudimentary filters can be made from clothes to reduce particles.

A few practical tips can make boiling more effective:

• Use a clean pot or kettle
• Bring the water to a full, rolling boil, not just a few bubbles
• Let it cool naturally before transferring it to a clean container
• Store boiled water separately from untreated water to avoid recontamination or cross-contamination.

Labeling Your Containers

Clearly label containers with clearly understandable labels. For example:

• Raw, unfiltered, contaminated water only NOT FOR CONSUMPTION ->
• -> Filtered, contaminated only NOT FOR CONSUMPTION ->
• -> Flocculant container NOT FOR CONSUMPTION ->
• -> Chemically treated, ready for boiling NOT FOR CONSUMPTION ->
• -> Boiled DRINKING WATER ONLY

If you are processing water at community level, the processing area should only be accessible to water area staff.

Recontamination is easy to overlook. You can boil water perfectly, only to contaminate it again with a dirty ladle, a poorly cleaned bottle, or an unwashed storage container. Purified water is only as good as the container it ends up in.

This means that purifying floodwater, which some preppers think can be filtered, is actually dangerous too. The Use of floodwater for drinking with the Puribag is only for emergencies when nothing else is available. The Puribag is the only system suitable for floodwater, but it does not guarantee the removal of toxic chemicals.

Harvesting Rainwater, Storage, & Drinking

Just like any other water, rainwater needs to be made safe for drinking, but beware: it contains PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” I use food-grade MDPE 220-liter resealable barrels that once contained olives. These barrels are opaque, and so Algae doesn’t grow in them. 2,200 liters have a footprint of 2.5 sqm.

Water purification is a knowledge-based skill; you are responsible for ensuring the water you produce is free from pathogens and safe to drink.

Resoures

Xylem Water Filtration: Plant-Based, Sustainable Water Filters Approved by MIT Engineers