Water and sanitation when SHTF

[Brambles]

When we lived in a flat for a while, this was one of the big fears for me was the idea of lack of sanitation. I had an inordinate amount of wood pellet kitty litter (not for the cat, the old boy only liked the expensive non clumping stuff.) But for our use in an emergency. I still keep some, just in case. As well as enough water purification tablets for 2,0000 litres of water and a Sawyer mini. I also have a homemade filter (bucket with a lid) full of pond filter media to clean the water before final treatment and I even have a fold up 200L waterbutt.

Where would you get a flat pack water butt from? Would a berkey not be a good addition?In fact has anyone even got a berkey? Have been thinking of getting one
Thanks[/quote]

Berkey's are apparently the bits but you do pay for that privilege.

Folding water butt.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Botanico-Colla ... dpSrc=srch

Mine is the 200L version. I got a steal when I got mine as it had been mispriced and was £4.99 Not sure I'd want to pay full price for one.

[itsybitsy]

Blimey, that IS cheap, definitely a pricing foo-foo I think! I love it when Amazon bugger up the prices on stuff. I got six bottles of my usual shampoo (400ml bottles) for £7.99 not long ago, and it's usually £5.00 a bottle!

[Arzosah]

I have two water butts, both unconnected I got as far as setting them up on their stands, and poured water inside to test them, and the taps both leak so I bought plumber's tape, as it was described to me, to tighten up the screw joining the tap to the butt, and thats as far as I got before I fell ill. The big one is on its side in the garden, minus lid, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were animals sheltering in there overnight sometimes It would be great to get it going this year.

I saw a report this week about Joburg - rich people are having wells installed on their property, to keep their swimming pools full and their grass green, and ordinary Joburgers are managing to cut their water consumption in half, which is pretty good, considering the stuff is still flowing out of the taps.

I too think its underestimated as a prep - the recent rains will have helped my local reservoirs, but they're still down from where they should be.

[Brambles]

When we lived in a flat for a while, this was one of the big fears for me was the idea of lack of sanitation. I had an inordinate amount of wood pellet kitty litter (not for the cat, the old boy only liked the expensive non clumping stuff.) But for our use in an emergency. I still keep some, just in case. As well as enough water purification tablets for 2,0000 litres of water and a Sawyer mini. I also have a homemade filter (bucket with a lid) full of pond filter media to clean the water before final treatment.

^^^ Prepper

[Arwen Thebard]

We have been using our Berkley for almost a year now, which we bought on Ebay with a 12 month interest free payment plan via PayPal.

So far its been brilliant and the only draw back is that you do need to set it somewhere high enough to get glasses etc underneath the tap, our kitchen window cill is ideal. (Or buy an expensive riser plate from the manufacturer)

It hasn't been used in anger yet and only filters out the chlorine etc from the mains tap water which is awful in this area. (Ipswich / Suffolk)

[ForgeCorvus]

Another countertop filter system is the Propur https://propur.uk/en/.

The filters are made a few miles from me and my work moulds some plastic parts for them (thought I should declare my limited interest)

[jansman]

So...moving on from water supply,what about sanitation.Or,getting rid of the messy's or the doo- doos? We are fortunate that our property still has a functioning ,( and used) outdoor privy.We also have enough garden to deal with waste,by burying, should the sewage system fail.Here's a link.

http://www.practicalsurvivor.com/emergencysanitation

[Brambles]

Short term kitty litter, bin liners and a bucket. Longer term composting toilet (I have the humanure handbook.)

[Arzosah]

And if you're going on to sanitation, then you're talking about toilet paper too (you knew it had to be mentioned somehow ). I can never understand why sponges on sticks were the preferred Roman method, but for us, wipes of some sort - cloth that can be washed, or maybe leaves/moss, as people write about.

And there'd be cloth nappies to boil-wash. There are good reasons why babies and young toddlers in preliterate societies run about with no clothes on - less to wash that way.

Filtering the water supply would become extremely important, because you wouldn't know where other people were disposing of their waste, and whether they were contaminating the water table.

[Deeps]

Something to consider might be that even if you and yours dig a hole and do everything right, your neighbours might be living in a shit infested slum next door if you live in a built up area. Like most of us do. You can always 'gift' the neighbours with knowledge.