BLEACH

does anyone know the validity of bleach in purifying water? i recently added a small bottle of "ice drops" breath freshener filled with bleach (75 drops to be exact) to my PSK. the bottle is about 1 1/4"x1/2" i have heard that 1 or two drops will purify one quart,and i heard elsewhere that 16 drops will purify one gallon

I think your measurements are about right, but I would be concerned about long-term storage of bleach inside that sort of container.<br><br>I would stick with purification tablets, I think the storage and safety considerations are simpler.

See Doug's article on water purification regarding bleach.

On most brands there is instructions on the side of the container.

Bleach is not my first line of defense for water purification, but I can conceive a situation where it might be the only option. What I can't find is a definitive answer as to the proper dosage. Doug recommends six drops per gallon--so you know that has to be in the ballpark, but others, (including Fema) recommend 16 drops per gallon (one drop per cup) and others recommend up to 32 drops per gallon for "dirty" water. Does anyone know at what point the bleach could actually become poisonous--doing more harm than good? On the other end, does anyone know the minimum effective dosage(with some certainty that the water is properly purified)? It is surprising that there is such a wide range of suggested dosage regarding a process that has been around forever. Come on you chemistry guys....give us a break--and a clue! <br><br>take care,<br><br>Robb<br><br>If not now, when? If not us, who?

To purify water that could be biologically contaminated, first strain visibly dirty water through a cloth. Use standard household chlorine bleach with 5.25% sodium hypochlorite as its only active ingredient, add 2 drops/qt (32 oz) or 1/2 teaspoon/5gal, double for cloudy water, stir, wait 30 minutes, a distinct taste or odor of chlorine should remain, if not, treat again and wait 15 minutes, repeat as necessary. The remaining taste or odor of chlorine is a sign of safety: if it is absent, the bleach may have lost effectiveness in storage (storage time is at least 2 years). Remember to loosen the cap of the water storage container and shake some treated water into the threads immediately after dosing to sanitize that area and prevent cross-contamination.

Remember that colder water tempuratures will slow down the reaction so it may take longer to purify (i.e., mountain stream, melted snow, etc.) Also, the concentration of sodium hypochlorite may differ from brand to brand. Check the label. The chart I have lists the following dosage per gallon:<br><br>1% 40 drops<br>4 - 6% 8 drops<br>7 - 10% 4 drops<br><br>But I also must caution that I never used chlorine bleach personally.

Thanks guys....but Willie, you said:<br><br>"But I also must caution that I never used chlorine bleach personally."<br><br>How do you get the white shirts clean?<br><br><br>

[censored] in place of white. <br><br>Similarly, I'd just go ahead and pack Potable Aqua. The knowledge of bleach dosage is good to have in a contingency, but appears to be elusive!

Depends. Chlorine is a good way to extend the shelf life of munincipal water, expecially when coupled with cool dark storage. We keep a 55 gallon drum in the cold storage room for each person in the family and although we refresh the water annually, it would be safe to assume it could go 5 years (at least). The total amount of water is the reason I use it, not the size of the storage containers - that's a lot of otherwise expensive processes or chemicals to ensure the water is not growing cooties in storage. Bleach is cheap. <br><br>I use iodine tablets otherwise. (Or simply drink the water - it depends on where I am.)<br><br>Chlorine (bleach) will even kill the tough bugs - eventually. The hard bodied stuff like crytosporodium take forever to get knocked out - well, a really long time, anyway. Not practical for immediate consumption, but if one can wait 24 - 48 hours... it's certainly better than no treatment.<br><br>Mostly just another good bit of info to keep tucked away just in case, IMHO.

>>>"But I also must caution that I never used chlorine bleach personally."<<<<br>>>>How do you get the white shirts clean?<<<<br><br>Hmm... The dry cleaner?<br><br>Actually, I do use bleach to disinfect/sterilize aquariums tanks and equipment.

I've used bleach carried in a empty eye dropper bottle (be sure to mark the bottle!) on camping/canoe trips for years and never had any probelms... I carry two 1 quart bottles drink from one and fill and treat the other... four drops per fill and then it needs to stand about an hour before your drink it.<br>One other tip, if you don't like the taste, a trick I use is to dump the glass of water your about to drink from one cup to another a couple times to help release the clorine... actually works quite well. You do get used to the taste and smell very quickly right from the bottle though.

http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw000/faq/emerg.html<br><br>some decent info

Gator,<br><br>Nice website you suggested. I cruised around it a bit. The link in your email did not come up for me initially (I shortened the URL you provided and got to the site to poke around), and I found info. on chlorine/bleach which is what I think you were referring to. <br><br> In the course on looking around, I found a word search box in that site. When I keyed in Potassium Permanganate it came up with a bunch of references to what appears to be a single main document of about 346 pages. This provided additional & interesting reading (to me at least). This document has information regarding the recommended amounts to use for various chemicals.<br><br>Considering that water treatment has been the subject of several threads in the recent past, it was nice to see another "official" take on the subject.<br><br>FWIW . . . On a side note, although I recall having seen water disinfection information of bleach bottles in the past, since reading this thread, I've been looking at bleach bottles in several stores (Publix / Winn Dixie / Costco / Walmart) and strangley enough have not seen these instructions printed on any of about 20 different brands of bleach. <br><br>Also, I found that there has been a massive increase in the amount of bleaches that have other active ingredients. It was a bit of a task to find good ole plain bleach with one active ingredient. <br><br>Enjoy,<br>Comanche7

I called Clorox a few hours ago. The instructions for emergency water purification were as follows. <br> 16 drops per gallon. (thats 1 drop per cup)<br> or 1 teaspoon for five gallons<br> wait 30 minutes before drinking.<br>Buy the regular Clorox, not the scented kind. On the side of the jug is a customer service phone number. They will check to see if you have the proper version of Clorox, by asking you the bar code number, and will give instructions for using it in such a manner.<br> I just tried to filter and purify some water out of a mud puddle in my driveway. One drop per cup is quite strong.<br> I need to work on my makeshift filtration though. I ground some charcoal and sandwiched it between two coffee filters. I placed this inside half a gatorade container. (the one they call the "edge" bottle) It works pretty well, but the coffee filters get clogged up far too fast. At first I thought it was the charcoal clogging the filters, but I had the same result without charcoal. Maybe I will try to find some of that "micro-fine" screen they use in some coffee makers and some high performance automotive oil filters.

If you are planning to drink the water that you are purifying from the mud puddle in your driveway, I hope you have considered the possibility of toxic chemicals that might be on the driveway. I would not count on them being removed by the process you described.

Castaway,<br><br><br>Good point!! I regularly observe my neighbors dumping oil, antifreeze, old gasoline etc...in the creek. I don't believe that the issue of chemical pollutants has been addressed on the forum, although it definately should be. I can't think of a single "fits in a PSK" water treatment process that will deal with those sorts of contaminaints. I'm not even sure if any of my water purifiers will (scary thought).<br><br>Anybody know anything about this?<br><br>Take care,<br><br>Andy

Good point. Activated charcoal should deal with *most* of the organics, but it does nothing for heavy metals, for example.<br><br>It's not just roadway runoff to consider. <br><br>Agricultural runoff from this part of the country is normally chock full of all kinds of pesticides, herbicides, and nitrates/other fertilizer compounds. There's a huge spike in the ambient levels in our rivers everytime it rains upstream of the sampling points. Drain the wetlands... wait, we already did that to over 98% of them in this part of the country...<br><br>In other parts of the country, mining runoff can be bad for you. Specifics vary, but heavy metals are highest on my list of concerns. It's hard-to-impossible in some parts of Colorado to be certain that the stream one obtains water from is not being laced with staggering amounts of heavy metals from abandoned mines. There is potentially more immediately lethal runoff from certain types of mining operations, but these - like cyanide leaching operations - are usually pretty well contained these days and the most usual conditions that might lead to significant leakage are the same conditions that would tend to greatly dilute the effluent.<br><br>Other than distilation or reverse osmosis, there are no GOOD solutions to heavy metal contamination. Exchanging aluminum for heavy metals, as several filters do, scares the bejabbers out of me - the cure may be as bad or worse than the problem.<br><br>I'm neither anti-ag nor anti-mining; these are just additional things to consider. Practically speaking, one is unlikely to be in dire straits for water in this part of the country and even if so, if the water didn't numb or irritate the mouth/throat (chemicals), it's probably not gonna incapacitate/kill one. <br><br>And by similar reasoning, a few days drinking lead-laced water is probably not going to cause any long-term or irreversable problems. Play the odds - but know what they are. Long term exposure to either circumstance is another story, of course.

I've always wanted to try roasting Chicory root to make coffee. Unfortunately, the only place I've seen in numbers is along roadsides. Someone cautioned me long ago about eating plants on curbs and roadside ditches as the plant can absorb nasties from traffic residue. So the caution about drinking water can be extended to edible plants as well.

You mean your neighbors havn't been made to drink the water of their own making? Stop polluting it and you won't need to worry about it.

Its a dirt driveway in the middle of 53 acres of forest. Its just a mudhole.

This worked fantastic.<br>Treat water with clorox.<br>Cut the bottom off a 24 ounce gatorade bottle.<br>Add in this order......<br>one coffee filter<br>one "Top Fin" Small filter cartrige from "Top Fin Power Filter 10" (activated carbon for aquariums)<br>one coffee filter<br>1/2 inch sand<br>one coffee filter<br>one paper towel

If only it were that easy.<br><br><br>Andy

Don't know if it's worth really getting horrible frightened of. Most of us have municiple water with flouride. Other than drinking water and toothpaste, the only other consummer products that contina it are poisons for rats and the like.<br><br>As for purifing with bleach, well, chlorine vapors were and are used as a cemical anti-personnel weapon. Granted, the concentratino isvery low, and fine for most people, but not for all.<br><br>All in all, if you are thirsty, and it doesn't disolve your tounge, do what you can to purify it, and hope it doesn't kill you. <br><br>(Glad I have my own well, with the only "bad" thing being a enough iron to beat on the pipes and keep us all from being anemic.)