Selecting A Water Purifier For Camping
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
If you’re headed out to the great outdoors for a camping trip, you might think you don’t need to bring water. All you need to do is dip a cup into a bubbling brook or a flowing stream to get some nice, crisp, clean water, right? No. Wrong.
In fact, this water, which might seem “clean,” is actually filled with particulate matter (harmful pollutants) and dangerous bacteria, which could make you violently ill. This is why you absolutely must use some purification system before you drink any water you’ve collected in the wild.
Now, you could haul in a bunch of barrels of water, rather than purifying your own water, but that would be heavy and annoying. Instead, I suggest that you bring your own water purifier and use it to collect water and then make it potable for your own consumption.
Use a Pot and Fire
If you do not have a lot of money to spend, there’s always the inexpensive method of water purification: you can boil water in a pot over your camp fire. Sounds easy enough, huh? And by boiling that water, you will get rid of all that nasty bacteria that can potentially harm you. This is a fairly simple solution to work with, and if you’re bringing along a pot to cook in anyways, it also saves bag space, since it requires no additional equipment. However, if you’re using this as your water purifier when camping, be aware that boiling the water removes the oxygen as well, which results in rather flat-tasting water, which won’t be much of a pleasure to drink. Also, you’d have to wait for the water to cool down, anyways.
Tablet Purification
At many stores that sell camping goods, you can by tablet water purifiers for camping, which make use of dissolved capsules to kill bacteria and make the water safe to drink. These solutions use iodine or chlorine in order to remove harmful organisms, and are quite portable, since they fit in a little container. However, the tablets will lose potency a few months after you first crack open the bottle and can leave a funny sort of taste to the water. You can get around this by dissolving vitamin C in the water after purification, or you can add flavorings, such as Tang, to hide that taste.
Purification And Filtration Bottles
Another solution for water purifiers when camping is to use specially made bottles that have purification systems built into them, similar to the water filtration systems some people get for their taps. By filling the bottle and then passing the water through a special filtration system, you can get rid of particles in the water and kill bacteria. Be sure to get a system that handles filtration and purification, though, or you risk exposing yourself to harmful organisms. Whichever solution you prefer, though, just make sure you use some sort of water purifier when camping and you’ll avoid nasty surprises from your water.
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