Clean drinking water....

Everymanalion

New member
Jan 8, 2012
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Juarez, Mexico
So I am heading back down to Mexico again in about two weeks, only issue I have had is finding drinking water without paying for bottled water(I am poor), does the old using a bandana/t-shirt as a water filter over the top of your water actually work when getting it from a moving water source(I.E. river)? Any other free/super cheap suggestions?
 
When i was staying on a river that actually was reclaimed poo water i just found where the stream was moving the best.And being the cleanest spot i could find all i did was use my tshirt and layer it over the top of my bottle then that acts like a filter.I did however boil it after i collected it then the next day i just used the shirt again and i drinked right from that river with no problem.

What id do to cool the water after boiling it is just chuck it back into the river that way the container cools down faster.

You can build a solar filter as well as a carbon filter from junk if you know what to look for.Their are a bunch of diagrams online to build a solar filter as well as the carbon ones.
 
That steripen is made from mostly glass so I wouldn't use it(glass breaks!) iodine works well and boiling is almost full proof. The only thing a shirt/bandana will do is filter out particles or debris. You can also make a pretty good filter with sand, coal, rocks, etc. but you have to lug that shit around with you. Let the water come to a rolling boil for a few minutes and let it cool. Most times you're good to go. If you're real iffy about it, just drink a little bit (or get someone else to) and wait a good while. If you don't get sick it's probably okay.
 
I remember reading somewhere that it's best to dig a hole several feet from the water line. The farther away from the water line the better. You'll dig down and the hole will get to where water fills it up. Also you can get rather cheap products such as Life Straw. Look it up. There are other brands that do the same thing.