HOW TO GET CLEAN WATER IN THE WILDERNESS

Vatic Note:   It really is time to start preparing and most of what we should be considering is life sustaining issues, like food and water.   That is why this is up.  So think on it and contribute any other suggestions, for others,  in the comments section.  Thanks

HOW TO GET CLEAN WATER IN THE WILDERNESS
http://jimstone.is/ 
By Jim Stone,  Freelance Reporter,
                                                        

How to get clean water in the wilderness (If you are caught totally unprepared) which means practically everyone. Surprisingly, if all you have is a pair of blue jeans with good fabric they can be used to filter water and will catch practically all bacteria down to about 1 micron.

This assumes quality jeans that are not worn out. However, despite being great for water filters when in perfect shape, they should be viewed more as a flavor improver because they are likely to have flaws.

Water from the wild often gets a nasty film on top of it when you boil it without filtering it, and sending it through jeans before boiling would get rid of that mess. Jeans would be far better than drinking water straight without boiling it.

Coffee filters will work to some degree but with a pore size of about 10 microns and unreliable manufacture they are not that great against bacteria. Use at least 2 stacked. HOWEVER, most water borne bacteria are large, 10 microns will catch amoebas and most protozoans. And obviously a coffee filter would be 50x better than nothing. If used to pre filter before boiling, they will improve potability drastically but I would not drink from them straight with questionable water if I was not absolutely desperate.
 
If you happen to be lucky enough to have garbage bags with you, you can tie them over dense vegetation that has direct sunlight and the bags will collect a lot of water from the plants as the leaves heat up and perspire water. Even without sun this still works but you get less water.

If you had 10 garbage bags to do this with, and you set them up properly (with the low point that collects the water out of the sun) and the bag tied off to keep the humidity in and force condensation to occur, you would easily get enough water to survive.

Obviously avoid poison sumac, poison oak, and poison Ivy, and remember that any holes in the bags would render them useless. This idea is much easier and works much better than a solar still.

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