On another board I've been lamenting the difficulty of finding some good, leak-proof containers for carrying a few gallons of water in a car over long periods. I've had trouble with the usual plastic 1 gallon screw-top jugs from the bottled water store leaking as the temperature in the car changes. If the bottle gets knocked over so it's upside down or on its side, then as the car heats up during the day, air in the bottle expands and forces water out through the threads. Some maps in my car got messed up by that. I'm trying to find containers that won't leak in any orientation and that are tough enough to deal with being squished under things or shoved around in the car, and poked by sharp corners of stuff. They won't literally be thrown around so they don't have to withstand long drops, but they'll get bounced around on the road etc.

Some people suggested Sigg aluminum fuel bottles or 32-oz Nalgene bottles, but that's not appropriate for this usage. 3 gallons in 32-oz bottles would need a dozen bottles, over $100 for bottles alone at $8 each, plus they would end up scattered all over the car. I'd like not-too-expensive containers somewhere between 1 gallon and 3 gallons in size. The car is small and space is at a premium, so larger containers should have a slim profile.

I'll skip some other alternatives that weren't really satisfactory either, including various models of Reliance jugs.

It seems to me that what I really want is sealed #10 food cans with water in them. #10 cans are the big steel cans used for stuff like tomato sauce sold to restaurants. They're about 3 liters in volume. They are made in humongous quantity for the food industry and filled and sealed by automatic equipment, so they're relatively inexpensive. They are strong enough to take quite a lot of physical abuse without leaking. If filled with sterile water, they should have very long shelf life. If they freeze solid, you can melt them by putting them in a fire (they should not be completely filled, to allow a little expansion space if they freeze). In short, they're much better for vehicle storage than those silly 4 oz packets or 8 ounce aqua blocks. Once you open one, you can't re-seal it, so you'd need a 3 liter collapsable canteen to hold the contents, no big deal. They're just about the right size to shove into odd corners of the car trunk and with 3 or 4 of them tucked away in the car, I'd be able to go on long road trips and have a few days worth of water if something happened in the middle of nowhere.

Is there some reason nobody's packaging water this way? Would any of the usual suppliers possibly be willing to give it a try? I'd buy a case or two (I think those cans are usually packed six in a case) at a few bucks a can.