Ridley "Store-and-Ignore Disaster Supply Box" - would you buy one?

[Puke]

FM 21-10 Field Hygiene and Sanitation is a good source of how to crap in the woods.
I'm sure there are probably better books out there about survival sanitation. The Army manuals are more for an Army style survival situation, obviously.
I don't have an E-tool or a water buffalo any more, so the information about that is rather useless.

[Kat Kanning]

FM 21-10 Field Hygiene and Sanitation is a good source of how to crap in the woods.

Err....someone needs a manual for this??

[Pat K]

FM 21-10 Field Hygiene and Sanitation is a good source of how to crap in the woods.

Err....someone needs a manual for this??

The military does and you have to fill out a form
every time in triplicate. 

[error]

My top candidate right now is the  U.S. army survival manual, FM 21-76 

They renumbered this manual, to 3-05.70. That's why you couldn't find a more recent one. Of course since it's downloadable...

[error]

FM 21-10 Field Hygiene and Sanitation is a good source of how to crap in the woods.

Err....someone needs a manual for this??

The Army does. And this particular manual is 161 pages! Compare that to this civilian guide to crapping in the woods.

[Kat Kanning]

FM 21-10 Field Hygiene and Sanitation is a good source of how to crap in the woods.

Err....someone needs a manual for this??

The military does and you have to fill out a form
every time in triplicate. 

Well, at least you have something to wipe with.

[Puke]

The Army manual also deals with decontaminating water, testing water, building latrines for whole companies of men, how to fill out paper-work, field kitchens, etc.
That's why I mentioned it isn't really a survival guide for one to two people.

[Dave Ridley]

Ok question:  do you guys think clear trash bags or black...would be best for raising the temperature of things inside the bag while in sunlight?

does the color of the bag, or lack there of , have any implications for storing food in the bag?  thanks kate for the note about food grade-ability.

I guess ideally i'm thinking a mix of bag sizes and uses...  but certainly a bag that is good for slightly heating things...would be helpful as would a food-containable bag.

[Dave Ridley]

puke wrote:
<<
One thing to note is that chlorine and iodine tablets corode everything around them, even when inside a container.
So, would it be better to have a modern filtration thingy, or are those limited in life-span??>>

most filters claim indef. life span if not used, but they're expensive.  my favorite is the "base camp" by katadyn .  its filters run arund 35 bucks i think but i havn'et priced 'em recently.  i have one but since i tested the filter it's expired and i have to buy another...

putting replacement filters in the kit would be problematic since who knows what kind of replacement filter a person might need?   

however selling base camps separately might be useful.  i have a portable i like too but haven't tested it...just own it.

[Puke]

I figured there must be some part that has to replaced. A bottle of iodine tablets would last longer and take up far less space and weight in a "grab and go" situation.

[Bald Eagle]

Chlorine Water treatment tabs  - plus printed instructions on how to use them, even in cloudy water.
 
The stability of 1,3,5-trichloro-s-triazinetrione (pool chlorine), Halzone, Chloramine-T, and any of the other water-treatment chemicals is directly related to the conditions under which you store them.  Moisture will cause them to hydrolyze into the parent organic compound and hypochlorous acid. Heat and light generally don't do nice things to reactive chemicals with UV-absorbing aromatic rings or carbonyl groups.  There is also the issue of degrading a plastic container, a plastic cap, or the cap liner.

Iodine in pre-weighed portions in sealed glass ampules is the way to go.  Bulk iodine can be used by intelligent folks with absolute safety, it provides the essential micronutrient iodide to the body for healthy thyroid function, and it lasts basically forever as long as the container is hermetically sealed to stop loss from sublimation.  It's useful for wound sterilization.  It can also be employed for other purposes that I won't go into here.

IODINE

You might also consider iodine for water purification.  Or iodine.


Alum - for de-clouding water and making it easier to treat with Chlorine.  I'm uncertain regarding the indefinite status of this item's shelf life. 

Potassium aluminum sulfate is cheap, easily made, and lasts an eternity.

Candles -
Lamp Oil - apparently odorless mineral spirits are better.  u get them at home depot.   

Get a copy of Cresson H. Kearny's Nuclear War Survival Skills  (NWSS).  Free online:  http://www.oism.org/nwss/
You can make servicable lamps with cooking oil and wicks.  The oil can be used for food if needed, and the wicking can be used as cord.
Think multi-purpose and redundancy.

Matches - Matches became a currency in Bosnia during the 1990s conflict.  To limit fire hazard issues, I could store them in sealed glass jars?

Matches suck.  Go with a good quality wind-proof refillable butane lighter and a can of butane.

Sterno - good for cooking indoors without electricity
Not a bad idea for a simple little kit.  Almost as important as the Sterno itself would be to teach people how to use drastically limited heat and fuel sources with the utmost efficiency.  NWSS has some excellent instructions about food, nutrition, and cooking with VERY low fuel consumption.  Really.
I would prefer an MSR Dragonfly stove with a supply of Coleman white gas.  The Dragonfly will burn white gas, diesel, or Bacardi 151 if it got down to that.  Sterno is basically alcohol gelled with calcium acetate.  I'm a big fan of keeping useful chemicals separate until you need to mix them for something specific.  Simple instructions for making gelled fuel from scratch can be found at:  http://zenstoves.net/Sterno.htm  Supply an empty can and pre-measured packets of calcium acetate, along with a bottle of ethanol.  The can can be used by itself, and the ethanol can be used for pre-dissolving iodine for water treatment, cleaning wounds, etc.
Multi-purpose. Redundancy.
A clever Porc could use the ethanol and waste fat/oil to make crude biodiesel for use in the Dragonfly.   

kleenex - ideally, I should leave you a room full, but this will have to do.
Kate had an excellent suggestion about TP, though I would go one step further and supply a durable cleaning cloth - the kind you can wash, wring out, and re-use.  Paper products are rapidly consumed, whereas these could be used for washcloths, wound dressings (esp. if lightly treated with a solution of iodine in ethanol ), coarse water filters, etc.

honey - will crystalize eventually but can be reclaimed by _____

An excellent idea.  Crystallize has 2 L's, and honey can be re-liquefied by gentle heating in warm/hot water.  Tastes good, smells good, good for morale, has antiseptic qualities for dressing wounds, etc.

salt - the world's ancient currency.   Became very valuable in central Bosnia during the war. 

Good idea.  If you provide iodine, don't use iodized salt.  First, because any iodine used for water treatment or wounds will be absorbed and far exceed the microscopic nutritional requirement, TOO much iodide can have the paradoxical effect of decreasing thyroid activity (which is why they whallop you with potassium iodide (KI) tablets in the event of a meltdown/fallout - to shut down thyroidal iodide uptake and stop your thyroid from irreversibly absorbing radioactive iodide which will begin to kill the gland), and UN-iodized salt is what you want for pickling and food preservation.  You may also consider adding potassium chloride salt as a nutritional supplement.

Wheat - plus printed instructions on how to sprout it.    This will keep you eating veggies for another week or two.   

NWSS:  wheat berries are useless and problematic as food if not thoroughly pulverized into flour.  You don't digest it well, it passes into your intestines un-utilized, the starch absorbs water and gives you diarrhea, and your intestinal flora metabolize it into gas.  The last thing you want people crammed together in a survival situation to have to deal with is a line for the facilities, gas, morale-killing diarrhea and gas cramps, and the masking of any real health problems by self-induced GI upset.  Besides, it's surprising how many people exhibit a wheat allergy to some degree or another.

I would include a mill of some sort, and instructions about grinding and cooking wheat.
I'd also investigate supplying grains other than wheat.

See thru trash bags - double as low-budget greenhouse device in the sun.  Useful for all kinds of things and rarely in plentiful supply.
Baggies

Everything in the kit should be in a separate zip-lock bag, and the entire kit should be supplied in a waterproof (not simply water-resistant) container.  Something like an ammo box or a food-grade 5-gallon bucket.  Nest a cooking pot with a lid in the bucket.

Vitamins and food supplements.  Ascorbic acid, niacin, B12, and others come immediately to mind.
Pain-relievers/fever reducers.  You're going to be hurting from injury or unaccustomed physical activity, and have increased labor demands.

There's a thousand items I can think of that have been supplied with survival kits, discussed ad-infinitum on WTSHTF forums, etc.  The best thing would be to have a checklist with references to pages in a manual that explains why these items are important and how to use them.
Most books I've seen are hard to use because there is too much detail all at once, and most checklists don't have enough info.  I'd suggest constructing a 3-tiered manual. 

First, a checklist.  Subdivide it into what comes with the supplied kit (so that items used in non-emergencies [you know it will happen] can be replaced, and a list of things to supplement the kit (salt, fuel/food oil, newspaper, etc).  Add a short tag-line for each item that briefly describes what it could be used for. 
Rate the items into a hierarchy of usefulness/multi-purposeness.

Example:   [ X ]  Iodine.
                       Water-purification, antiseptic, wound-dressing, nutrition, radiation, other.

Second, have a quickie, here's-how-you-do-it-right-here-and-now section so that the dehydrated guy with the head wound in a chaotic situation and limited light can get down to the nitty gritty of purifying the 5-gallons of water without giving everyone iodine poisoning.
Large print.  Warnings.  Step-by-step.  Clear line-drawings.

Third, a more detailed section of the book with details, details, details.  For pre-disaster home study; discussion of useful substitutes, modifications, and completely different methods; to provide a comprehensive list of cheap and useful items to have on hand as well as what common, everyday items can be used for with a little ingenuity.  Suburbanites taken by surprise by a disaster are going to need every ounce of help they can get.  A ridiculously thorough cross-indexed index complete with synonyms for everything you might want to look up would be a huge bonus for people having a stress-induced mental block.

Useful items to include/suggest:
KNIFE.  Large heavy knives/machetes can be used as makeshift hatchets.
Good quality pliers.  Useful, versatile, can replace/be redundant with wrench, tweezers, etc.
Twine, rope, wire.  Binding, wicking, electrical repair, manufacturing other items, etc.
Screws, screwdriver.  Flat-bladed screwdrivers can be used as makeshift prybars, chisels, and can-openers.
Cyanoacrylate (Krazy) glue.  Also useful for wounds - "bonds skin INSTANTLY"
Can opener.
Heavy duty scissors or metal shears.  Provides leverage for heavy cutting, useful for cans.
Hatchet/axe.  For bigger jobs than knife, back end can be used as hammer.
Newspaper.  Fuel, insulation, covering, wrapping, absorbing spills, privacy, entertainment, etc.
Cloth, sheets.  Bedding, clothing, insulation, wrapping, carrying, storage, furniture, wounds, etc.
Wax, paraffin.  Fuel, sealing, waterproofing, molding/casting, etc.

These are just a few off-the-cuff ideas.

Maybe expand the kit idea to include classes, a kit-building business, and a supplemental program to the NH State Guard Study Group.  (PLEASE sign up for this!)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewHampshireStateGuardStudyGroup/

[Bald Eagle]

It just occurred to me that it would be useful to have people sign on to be community activists and store larger quantities of disaster-preparedness items, much in the same way that Defender of Liberty suggested that people form a network for the Porc food bank.
http://newhampshireunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=10750.msg215498#msg215498

It would be much more cost-effective to buy things like salt and ascorbic acid in commodity-chemical or vet-supply quantities, and have them stored in a dry shed/garage/basement/attic so that they can contribute to disaster relief.

Apartment dwellers, and new incoming Porcs are likely to be hit the hardest due to space, income, and other limitations.

[Kat Kanning]

Nice idea, Baldie 

[Dave Ridley]

re-selling iodine over 2% tincture or in solid form is illegal and carries up to a ten year penalty.
that's what's forced me toward chlorine.  I own a great iodine water kit...and prefer it over chlorine...but cant sell it legally.

i like the multi-use idea...the edible oil for candles sounds cool.
i'm worried about making the kit too labor intensive but making candles is probably easy.

wheat is for sprouting, not eating as-is.   in some ways it is the perfect food in some ways its not...but the key thing is its indefinite shelf life.   I agree it would be nice to be able to grind the sprouts...they are perfectly edible and nutritious as is but grinding them probably makes them absorb better.   is there a cheap way to grind them, which I could include?

i've used a hand grinder it seems awful labor intensive.  i blend the sprouts sometimes to increase absorbtion
keep the ideas coming, tho i can't incorporate them all i can incorporate some.

[Bald Eagle]

Iodine: Slight water solubility (0.03 g/100 g water @ 20C).

Percent is g/100 mL, so that's 0.03% at saturation in water.
So in a way, a 2% tincture is 66.7 times more concentrated than it needs to be.

If you calculate the concentrations typically needed for medicine, nutrition, or water sterilization, coupled with the "how much am I really gonna use in my lifetime" factor, a small well-sealed bottle of 2% tincture ought to be just fine.

Also keep in mind that converting any iodide salt into iodine borders on effortless, and I didn't see anything about selling someone a pound of potassium iodide.

Having a companion container of chlorine-based water purifier isn't a bad idea, but get iodine or iodide or iodate into the kit somehow.

The food oil isn't exactly used to make candles - it used to make an oil lamp.
See attached image.

Wheat sprouts are a good idea, they will act as a source of Vitamin C.
Barley and sprouted beans can also be used.
Though it's a Hell of a lot of work compared to just cooking and eating the wheat and supplying a small jar of pure crystalline ascorbic acid.  One level teaspoonful is 160 days worth.

Add sugar, nonfat dry milk, powdered egg white, beef jerky, chocolate, and red beans.  Maybe a few canned meat or fish items to give people the basic idea.

Chewing gum, playing cards, cigarettes, anything to help get people through a trying time and decrease irritability and social friction.