How to Clean Water In the Wild

(Modern Survival.org) – What can you use to get clean water without a water filter?

Plastic Bag
Hose
Bucket
Well

Answer: Plastic Bag. Here’s why…

Water is incredibly important, not only in a survival situation but in your day-to-day life as well. Without drinking the right amounts of water, you can face a laundry list of health issues in as little as three days — up to and including death.

Finding water can be difficult in an emergency situation, such as becoming lost in the woods while hiking or camping. Once you have found it, there is a good possibility that drinking it could be dangerous as well.

How can you stay hydrated if you find yourself lost in the woods? In the following video, survival expert Les Stroud provides some life-saving tips on how to find water in the woods and how to ensure it is safe to drink:

If you find water in a pond, stream, or lake while lost in the woods, chances are that it is going to have some nasty ingredients you don’t want to consume. Waterborne illnesses such as Giardia or Shigella can quickly take a survival scenario from bad to deadly.

If you find yourself needing clean drinking water in the wild, here are a few options to purify what you find:

Chemically clean it using water purification tablets or iodine tablets.
Boil the water.
Add chlorine bleach to the water.

If you are lost in the woods without these options, you still have a way to clean the water so long as you have a plastic bag and a receptacle to catch the water. Here’s how to do it:

Dig a hole in a location where the sunlight will hit it.
Pour water into the hole, then place the cup (or other items to catch the distilled water).
Place the plastic bag over the hole, push a small indent in it over the cup and secure it in place with dirt or rocks around the edge of the hole.
As the water evaporates from the sun’s heat, the plastic bag will catch it. Eventually, the water will accumulate and drip down into the receptacle.

This process will make your water drinkable. In dire circumstances, you can use your urine for this. (It is important to note that you shouldn’t drink your urine without distilling it first, as urine is one of the body’s methods of clearing out toxins.)

The importance of water in a survival emergency cannot be overstated. Locating a water source should be the second step you take once you have established a shelter to defend you from the elements.

To see how to purify water using bleach, click here.

~Here’s to Your Survival!