Oh wow, you just found a running stream with water! And right on time too, after scrounging for some bugs and building your lean-to, you’re quite thirsty. Your canteen of water has emptied long ago, but you’re in luck, because you just found all the water you need to survive!
Well hold your horses just a moment there, cowboy. Don’t just go sticking your head in on bodies of water that you don’t know about. That stream may look as clear as the water inside that drinking glass in your house, but don’t be fooled. You have no idea what this water contains, or where it has been.
For all you know, it could be contaminated with parasites, viruses, or bacteria. The worst-case scenario is that it might have a brain-eating amoeba, of which there is no cure.
Instead, exercise caution, at least by way of purifying your water in one way or another. This article examines multiple ways that you can “clean” the water you drink to ensure that your health remains in tip-top shape for the coming days.
Boiling
One of the simplest and easiest way to purify your water is through boiling, and all you really need is a container that holds the water you want to boil, and a fire to actually heat up the container and boil the water inside.
Boiling kills most microorganisms, making it less likely that the harmful ones in the water would be able to infect you, as they would either be killed off entirely, or thoroughly weakened enough that your immune system would be able to handle any stragglers.
Done right, you can have yourself clean water from boiling in as little as 10 minutes, but just to be safe, make sure you keep the water bubbling as it boils for 5 minutes when it starts bubbling before removing it from the fire, then setting it down for at least 5 more minutes for finishing touches and to allow it to cool.
Important to note though, while boiling water kills microorganisms contained within it, it does not remove large, undesirable particles, such as leaves, sticks, dirt, and the like, meaning that you will have to filter the rest out again in a different way.
Filtering
If you still remember your science lab classes, you probably did some filtration experiments at some point in school.
If boiling removes harmful microorganisms from your water, filtering removes physical particles that cannot be ingested, such as dirt.
To start, first, you will need a cone-shaped container. A plastic drink bottle is ideal for this, but if you cannot find one, you can make your own by scavenging for leaves and sticks and laying them out in a cone shape. Next, you can put some cloth or moss at the bottom of your filter to ensure that your filtration materials do not accidentally wash away.
For items that you can find in the wild that are meant to filter water, stones, sand, and moss work. Of course, you should wash the stones first, as they themselves might have dirty particles on them from the ground.
In a pinch, you can even use your own clothes as the filter material. Though, uh, you will probably want to at least cleanse your clothes through boiling, especially if you do not want your drinking water to taste like your sweat.
Distillation
This one uses more science and requires some materials that you may not have on hand.
Simply put, you will need two different sized containers, where the smaller container is placed inside the larger one, while the larger container is filled with water. Any kind of unfiltered water works, so one with dirt, grime, or even saltwater.
Cover the large container, and with enough sunlight, the water will drip from the cover of the large container onto the smaller one, distilled, and ready to be filtered further with another water filter.
This type of separation is especially important in tropical regions or places where there is a lot of seawater, and there is no easy way to remove the contaminants even with makeshift filters.
Sedimentation
Here is a remarkably simple trick to removing particles from your water.
Literally doing nothing.
No, really. If you place your water on a container and just let it set for a while, all the foreign particles will sink to the bottom, meaning that the water on top will be clean.
This is due to a process called sedimentation where all the particles, inside, being much heavier than the liquid itself, are much more attracted to gravity, thus they will all eventually fall to the lowest part of the container.
You may want to cover the container with a leaf though, to ensure that no new particle sneaks in undetected.
After some time has passed, you can start scooping out the water, but only from the top part of the container, while being as careful as possible as to not accidentally disturb the water. A single unwanted jolt could send all the particles that settled at the bottom flying, thus wasting the hours of your time that you spent waiting.
Using plants
Not only can you find plants with water in the wild, some types of plants can even help purify your water and even filter it as well!
However, this tactic should only be used sparingly; unless you are a botanist who knows his grass from weeds, touching random leaves off unknown plants can lead to a potentially disastrous situation that makes you or your body feel ill.
To be more on the safe side, use known plants such as the peels of fruit instead, such as bananas. Simply seal your water in a container or bag that can hold both the water and the plant and keep it inside for a bit.
Wrapping Up
Finding clear water is easy. Finding clean water is not. More often than not, it will be up to your hands to actually clean the water first before you drink to ensure your safety and health is properly maintained.
And as you have probably noticed, purifying water is a two-step process:
- Kill microorganisms
- Remove foreign contaminants
Most ideas here only focus on one step, which means you will need to achieve the other in some way or another, depending on the type of water you have.