by Cody Lundin
Liquid tincture of iodine 2 percent has a much longer shelf life, up to several years longer, than the compressed iodine tablets on the market. Iodine tablets, available at most camping stores, are relatively expensive and very susceptible to heat, light, and moisture degradation. If you choose to use the pill form, or that's all you have, the directions for their use should be on the bottle, usually two tablets per quart of water. Tincture of iodine 2 percent comes in its own unbreakable, one-ounce plastic bottle with a built-in cohesion dropper inside the cap, and retails for under two bucks. The bottle is typically tinted or opaque, giving the iodine greater protection from light sources. Circle the bottle with brightly colored tape for better visibility and write "Iodine" in permanent marker on its surface to minimize misunderstandings. The tincture is widely available and can be purchased at most discount pharmacies. If the pharmacy doesn't have any in stock, they should be willing to order some. Make sure to purchase the reddish-colored iodine as the drops from the "denatured" or clear iodine are hard to see hit the water. Another advantage of iodine 2 percent is its use as a topical wound disinfectant. When I was a kid, my skin was stained with iodine a good part of the time due to an assortment of scratches, cuts, abrasions, and punctures. In short, this compact, lightweight, cheap, easily available, globally effective, multiuse, extended shelf life, handy-to-use product is worth its weight in intestinal parasites for the urban and suburban survivor and outdoor enthusiast alike.
WARNING! If you look closely at the bottle of tincture of iodine 2 percent you will see a skull and crossbones with the word "poison" written underneath. In the early 1900s, iodine was used to disinfect entire town water supplies. The U.S. Navy has performed multi-month studies on unknowing shipbound sailors in which extreme amounts of iodine were added to the ships' drinking water. So far, nobody has reported a problem or sired a kid with three heads. Prison systems as well have performed their patriotic duty by secretly experimenting on hundreds of inmates with no problems being reported. Regardless, iodine is recommended for short-term use only, no longer than thirty days. The halogen iodine does have the following contraindications so know your family's medical history before using it. Do NOT use iodine water disinfection methods of any type if you are pregnant or have a known allergy to iodine or a thyroid problem.
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AND YOU THINK YOU GOT PROBLEMS?
More than 1.1 billion of the world's people don't have regular access to clean water.
One billion people must walk three hours or more to obtain drinking water.
In Mexico, 15 percent of the population must haul or carry water.
Nearly 2 percent of U.S. homes have no running water.
More than 2 billion people on earth do not have a safe supply of water.
Today, at least 400 million people live in regions with severe water shortages.
There are more than 70,000 known water pollutants.
Nearly 10,000 children under the age of five in developing countries die as a result of illnesses by using impure water.
Worldwide, waterborne diseases cause approximately 15 million deaths each year.
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10% Povidone—Iodine Solution
Most everyone has this product in their home first-aid kit, more commonly recognized under the trade name Betadine. 10 percent povidone-iodine replaced tincture of iodine 2 percent as a topical wound disinfectant largely because povidone doesn't sting when it's applied to a wound. (Tinctures contain alcohol, which causes the stinging.) Povidone itself is nontoxic and was used as a blood extender during World War II. Regardless of the larger number—10 percent as opposed to 2 percent—use eight drops of 10 percent povidone-iodine per quart or liter of water instead of five drops. For a maximum dose, similar to using ten drops of tincture of iodine 2 percent instead of five, don't use more than sixteen drops of 10 percent povidone-iodine per quart of water. Buy the generic version of this product, not the trade name, at the grocery or drugstore to avoid paying high prices. Other than the variation in the dose, follow the same guidelines as used for 2 percent tincture above.
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INGENIOUS IMPROVISED EYEDROPPER
To use the halogens iodine and chlorine you'll need to measure them in drops (or gtts) to disinfect your water. The easiest way to do this is to have an eyedropper attached with a piece of string to the gallon of bleach, or rubber-banded or taped to the one-ounce bottle of iodine. (Most iodine bottles usually have a built-in dropper based on cohesion on the inside of the cap.) If you don't have an eyedropper, or lose the one you had, you can easily improvise a dropper from a spoon and a piece of paper.
Make a strip of paper three or four inches long and a quarter inch wide. It can be torn or cut with scissors so don't get fancy about it. Then, take an ordinary kitchen spoon, fill it halfway with iodine or chlorine, and place most of the paper in the spoon with about an inch overhanging the tip of the spoon. The strip of paper will saturate with the halogen, and with the spoon slightly tipped, will draw by capillary action, drop by drop, the halogen down the strip. If you want more drops faster, slightly increase the tilt of the spoon. If you're the visual type, check out the picture in the photo section.
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Chlorine Bleach: Sodium Hypochlorite 5.25 and 6%
Chlorine, like iodine, is a halogen that is commonly used to disinfect water. Sodium hypochlorite (NaOCI) was initially tinkered with in 1785 by the Frenchman Berthollet, who first used it to bleach cotton. It has a pH of about 11 and is relatively unstable. It's widely used for a variety of purposes in many industries such as agriculture, chemical, glass, food, paper, pharmaceutical, and waste disposal.
While in the past iodine was used to disinfect town water supplies, chlorine has taken its place. Hypochlorite was first used to disinfect water to help combat cholera epidemics in London in 1854. It was used much later as a routine water treatment, initially in Belgium in 1902. Here in the United States, its first use in disinfecting city water happened in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Chicago, Illinois, in 1908. While the water treatment plant guys and gals use the big chlorine guns, we common folk have access to sodium hypochlorite 5.25 and 6 percent, otherwise known as chlorine bleach. For water disinfection purposes, buy bleach without added phosphates, dyes, or perfumes. It's commonly available at practically every supermarket, drug, and discount store in the nation, and if you purchase the generic brand, will cost less then two dollars for a gallon. This gallon will treat hundreds of quarts of nonpotable water while sanitizing your emergency potty, help you dispose of a corpse, clean your sink, bathtub, shower, and floor, as well as assist in removing the bloodstains from your shirt after fighting the neighbor over limited emergency supplies if you fail to act on the advice given in this book.
Short of drinking bleach outright, or using ridiculous amounts when disinfecting water, its toxicity is limited. It is corrosive and will stain clothing so keep it in an unbreakable container and use it with care. Hypochlorite solutions will eventually lose their chlorine over time as the active chlorine evaporates at a rate of 0.75 gram per day from the solution. Heat disintegrates it, as do air and sunlight, certain metals, and other things not normally found in a household. Thus rotate your sodium hypochlorite stock because when it has been stored for a long time, it becomes inactive. Store it in a cool area in an opaque, airtight container. Stay on the safe side with the potency of your chlorine and replace your gallon of bleach every year, whether you've opened it or not.
Since it is a halogen, like iodine, chlorine will readily bond to nitrogen compounds, organic and inorganic, present within the water. These nitrogen compounds, or pond scum, mess with the halogen's ability to kill, requiring either more sit time for the water to disinfect or greater amounts of halogen. Strain your water first through a bandana or some other article of clothing or let the water sit for a few hours in a five-gallon bucket to let the unwanted stuff settle to the bottom. This is especially important when using chlorine bleach, as organic matter bonds with th
e chlorine itself, actually changing its chemical makeup into something called chloramine, which does nothing to disinfect your water. Chlorine also doesn't work well with alkaline water and doesn't like being physically jostled, like being bounced around in a backpack. These are the main reasons I don't like it for disinfecting water in a wilderness setting, although I know people who are allergic to iodine and choose to use chlorine.
Important Note: I have seen conflicting data from reputable medical and chemical engineering sources regarding sodium hypochlorite's effectiveness against Giardia Lambia and Cryptosporidium. Some say it doesn't work and some say it does. Keep this in mind when using this halogen when these two critters are suspect.
Disinfecting Water with Chlorine Bleach
To use chlorine for disinfecting clear and temperate water, add two to four drops of chlorine bleach per U.S. quart. Give the container a little shake and let it sit for thirty minutes. Slightly open the cap, dribble some disinfected water down the threads, and smell the water. IT SHOULD SMELL LIKE CHLORINE. If it doesn't, add another drop or two of bleach and let it sit for another thirty minutes. As stated above, chlorine is sensitive to the temperature of the water. For cold water, either add another drop or two of chlorine and/or let the water sit longer, two to three hours or more, in order for it to properly disinfect. As a side note, normal tap water contains about 0.2 to 0.5 ppm (parts per million) of chlorine, swimming pools contain 1.5 to 3.0 ppm, and hot tubs 3.0 to 5.0 ppm.
Attention! When using iodine or chlorine to disinfect suspect water sources, if in doubt, add more halogen and/or let the water sit longer.
Filters
The first water filter was developed in 1685 by the Italian physician Lu Antonio Porzo. The filter consisted of both a settling and a sand filtration unit. Later, in 1746, French scientist Joseph Amy received the first patent for a filter design which used filters created from wool, sponges, and charcoal. It was used in households as early as 1750, and the trend seems to have continued.
Today many homes have water filters under their sinks to make municipal water taste and look better. Backpacking and camping stores are chockful of portable water filters that are designed specifically to screen out harmful waterborne pathogens. Most of them accomplish their task in the same way, by having some sort of filter material that physically "filters out" the bad bugs. Some water filters are large and, while semiportable, are designed for the stationary disinfection of large volumes of water for group expeditions. A few water filters are massive and are enjoyed by entire communities. The first U.S. water plant utilizing filters was built in 1872 in Poughkeepsie, New York. Other water filters are gravity fed and are ideal for use in the home. They can be purchased at many hardware stores and home building supply centers. Simply add the water in question into the catchment basin in the top, and it slowly percolates through the filters, screening out whatever pathogens the maker claims. . .you hope. If you purchase a filter of this type, make sure its intention is the filtering out of harmful pathogens (or chemicals), not simply prettying up how the water appears.
A filter's effectiveness is typically rated in microns. Different pathogens are different sizes, and the more expensive filters filter out the smallest, or those of the tiniest microns, in size. Viruses are so dinky that many will not be caught by any filter. To compensate for this, some manufacturers offer the option of a screwon, iodine-impregnated post-filter that disinfects your water after it's filtered. As some water filters are expensive and can run more than two hundred and fifty dollars, the reader might wonder why people don't simply use iodine that costs less then two bucks and can disinfect wounds as well. My answer is, buyer ego or ignorance and effective marketing. If you have a known allergy to iodine, that's one good reason to use a filter (without the iodine post-filter), but you will still be at the mercy of most viruses. Currently, this is not a big deal in the United States, but it is a serious concern on your visit to India. Make note that after a disaster and the potential contamination of potable water sources with poor sanitary practices, dead bodies, and God knows what else, viruses can make a roaring comeback in your sleepy little town.
Although an important part of your survival plan is the creation of potable water, water filters offer up only one use, violating the credo of multiuse gear. Most are expensive, and all backpacking varieties are mechanical, and mechanical things have many moving parts, which can and do fail under use. I have seen more than one brand-new water filter choke in the field, much to the dismay of its owner. In the Southwest, where many rivers and streams look like chocolate milk due to sediments, filters can clog within minutes. They then go through a vicious cycle: cleaned, clogged, cleaned, clogged, etc. A filter is usually operated by pumping a knob or lever with the hand, and the more clogged a filter becomes, the harder it is to operate. I have witnessed people in a sweaty lather trying to coax their filter to poop out a quart of water. If you have the time and the container, pour gathered water into your trusty five-gallon bucket to allow sediments to settle. Lighter foreign objects can be skimmed off the top. Many backpacking filters have a foam float attached to the gathering hose that allows you to adjust where it's stationed in the water so you're not sucking dirt off the bottom. All but the most expensive water filters will need their filters changed on a regular basis so buy spares. Even the more expensive ceramic filters will eventually wear out from repeated cleanings so factor this into your family's preparedness plan.
Some filters claim to filter out certain amounts of radioactive material, heavy metals, and other chemical contaminants. The problem with these claims is, how are we to know? The people who have the real money to invest in whether any disinfection method works as claimed, be it a filter or halogen, are the medical community and the military. My local laboratory charges more than one hundred dollars to inspect for each pathogen that may or may not be present within questionable water.
All in all, I do appreciate filters for their convenience, but don't limit your water disinfection strategy to its mechanical mercy. One of the main advantages of filtration for certain types of gathered city water is that it is bound to remove at least some pollutants.
Filtering Toxic Chemicals, Heavy Metals, and Pollutants
Killing organic waterborne pathogens is one thing, filtering out toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and other pollutants is an entirely different matter. A simple Web search will pull up dozens of water filter options that deal with waterborne pathogens and/or chemical contaminants. Many can be installed under the kitchen sink or attach to the water faucet itself.
Whole-house water filters are the parents of their kitchen-sink kids and can be quite complex. Many households use both, as whole-house systems filter water from where it enters the home but do nothing about potential lead contamination in the house's plumbing system. Most whole-house water filters use a four-stage filtration system to remove harmful contaminants from water. The first stage removes sediments in the water that may clog the remainder of the filter, reducing its effectiveness. The second stage utilizes a chemical process called water atomization that alters the molecular structure of chlorine and turns it into harmless zinc chloride. The third and fourth stages of filtration involve filters made from bituminous-activated carbon and coconut-shell activated carbon that filter out chemicals, pesticides, and other pollutants.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has two definitions for devices that filter out undesirable stuff from water. For an item to technically be called a "filter," it must be capable of a "4 Log" contaminant reduction, meaning at least 99.99 percent of the water's contaminants are removed. For an item to be called a "purifier," it must be capable of a "7 Log" contaminant reduction, meaning that 99.99999 percent of all contaminants are removed. Thus a purifier is one thousand times as effective as a filter. A 4 Log filter is probably sufficient for many conditions and, of course, will be cheaper to purchase than a purifier, but the choice is yours. In any event, the old adage "better safe than sorry" goes a long way when
one of your most critical resources for survival (water) is unfit to drink.
Unfortunately, almost all in-line filter options count on things being normal in Urbania to function—ample water pressure being the most obvious. When the power grid is down, those who rely on grid power won't have the electricity to provide the pressure needed to run water through the pipes and filters in their homes. The best option is gravity, and there are several smaller gravity filters on the market. These usually consist of a cylinder in which nonpotable water is poured into the top and allowed to settle over time through the filtering membranes to the bottom where it's drained off and ready to drink. In my home, I don't need pressurized water entering the house, as I placed my water storage tank higher than the house so gravity could do the job. I had to special order a particular faucet valve, as almost all on the market require pressurized water lines to operate, but that was the only oddity required.
