Water is incredibly important. The average person needs to drink at least eight glasses of water per day, and that’s in the best situation. If you’re moving around, getting sweaty, or in hot and humid conditions, you’re going to need more water than that. While there are some commercial options that can help you ensure that the pond or lake water that you come across is clean enough to drink, what happens if you don’t have any bleach or iodine tablets? You could end up drinking contaminated water, causing you to come down with a case of amoebas or something similar. This is why you must know how to make a water filter in the wild.
Create Some Charcoal
Before you begin putting your water filter together, you’ll need some charcoal. This is very easy to obtain since all that you need to do is start a fire. Once the fire has burned down, you’ll have some burnt wood at the bottom that you can crush up to create a charcoal filter. The reason why we instruct you to do this first is due to the fact that the charcoal needs to cool down before you can crush it up. You don’t want to burn your hands or heat up your drinking water to an uncomfortable temperature.
The Next Steps
After you have your cooled charcoal, you’ll need to create the actual filtration system. It starts with two containers, one filled with water. If you don’t have any manmade containers, you can use a hollow log or even a piece of bamboo. Both will hold the water nicely. Place a piece of cloth, such as a t-shirt or something with a very fine knit, on top of the other container. Wrap it over the top as tightly as you can. Place some small pebbles on top of the t-shirt and then pour your water from the first container over the pebbles and shirt into the second container. This is the first filtration step designed to remove large debris from the water.
Struggling in your marriage? Try Mend Your Marriage>>>
Next, remove the pebbles and the t-shirt and place the shirt only over the mouth of the first, now empty container. Then, layer some fine sand on top of the shirt. This level of filtration will remove even more particles – in this case, finer ones – out of the water. Then, once your filter is set up, pour the water through the filter again, over the shirt and the sand into the empty container.
Use Your Charcoal as a Filter
Finally, it’s time to filter your water with the charcoal. Remove the sand and t-shirt fabric from the top of the container with water in it. Remove as much of the wet sand as possible from the fabric. (Note: once the sand gets wet, it will cling a big and you’ll need to use some force to remove it.) Then, repeat the previous steps, only with the fabric and the charcoal. The crushed charcoal needs to be placed on the fabric and the water needs to be run through it. This will take care of any additional impurities. Just keep in mind that you may have to repeat the charcoal steps several times before the water is clean enough to drink.
Always Filter Your Water
Remember that no matter how clean and pure the pond, lake, stream, or river looks, you always want to filter your water. You don’t want to end up with an illness caused by drinking impure water, especially when you’re in a survivalist situation. Always err on the side of caution.
Ever Wonder What REALLY Happens When You Barry a Shipping Container?
