Here’s what to do when the water supply crashes

Sometimes if we think about all the things that need to be prepared in case of any emergency, we forget how important it is to maintain our personal hygiene too. It’s really necessary, because if you don’t care about it, it may lead to sickness. Besides, human waste is one of the main reasons for different disease types. So, if you don’t care about this waste properly, it may cause problems with health.

It is not difficult to take care of personal hygiene even if you’re in a survival situation, but, of course, you should know different ways of doing it. One of the most important things is that if you’re in an emergency situation, then probably you don’t have an unlimited water supply. In this case, you should know how to clean yourself with minimal usage of water.

In general, a person in the USA uses about 100 gallons of water every day. But imagine… What if the only source of water is a river? Will you still want and need to use as much water, if you realize that you need to go to the river every single time when you want to wash something? Of course, you won’t. If the central water system is down and if you don’t have any source of water at home, then you will haul so many gallons of water from a river if you decide to use it just like you used to, and this won’t be comfortable. So this is how you can make your life easier in a survival situation.

How to save water and stay clean when the water supply crashes

• Accumulate hygiene supplies now. You should accumulate all the necessary personal hygiene items, as well as food and some other supplies which are necessary for you. It’s always good to have some extra shampoo or tubes of toothpaste. Toilet paper is what is really difficult to accumulate because it’s needed a lot all the time. If you decide to get many toilet paper rolls which will be probably enough to survive in a critical situation, it may need the whole room as a warehouse. It’s also important to get feminine personal hygiene supplies as well.
• Clean your hands. It’s really necessary to keep your hands clean because hands are that part of your body which contacts with many things and which has a possibility to pick up some microbes or bacteria that can get inside of your body when you’re eating. That’s why it is important to wash your hands before breakfast or dinner. But even if you’re in need of saving water, never use a basin or a container to wash hands there, because if you clean your hands from any bacteria, these microorganisms will stay in this water, so if the next family member will wash his hands in this water too, he will become infected. So, to wash your hands properly you should always use running water, just not as much as you used to.
• Use a hand sanitizer. It is a wonderful invention that helps to keep your hands without microbes. If you use it, you don’t need any water, but you can be sure that you have no bacteria on your hands. This method won’t make your hands look absolutely clean, unfortunately, because it can’t destroy the dirt, but your hands will be safe biologically.
• Bath with minimal water usage. Usually, when a person takes a shower, he spends 3-5 gallons of water per minute; when a person takes a bath, he uses 30-40 gallons generally. But if you need to use less water you can effectively bath using a bucket: just take a small container, fill it with water and pour this water over yourself. This method is still really popular in several third-world countries. It’s possible to bath like this using not more than 1 gallon of water.
• Wash your hair less often. There are so many people who wash their hair every single day. But the thing is that washing the hair needs more water than any other washing type. But honestly, there is no need to do this daily. We wash it so often because when our hair is even a little bit dirty our scalp starts to itch. But in fact, it’s okay to live even a week without washing the hair, just try to get used to it.
• Dig an outhouse. If the central water system is broken, then it won’t be possible to use your home toilet. In this case, just a usual outhouse can help you; this method actually has been used for many centuries earlier. To do that you should dig a hole in your yard and then to build an outhouse over it. Try to dig a really deep hole because that means that you’ll be able to use it for a longer period of time. Once your hole is full, you’ll need to make a new one. Remember that you shouldn’t dig an outhouse somewhere close to any water source, because microbes from human waste can travel long distances (up to 100 feet) through the ground and infect the water.
• Create a portable toilet. If for any reason you can’t dig a hole for an outhouse, just build a small toilet. There are many methods to create it, but the best one is probably to make a toilet out of a 5-gallon bucket. Put several plastic bags into this bucket, so that it’ll make some layers. After you use this toilet several times, just take out one bag and destroy it, then you can continue using this toilet.

Be prepared for when the SHTF tomorrow…

If you think in advance how to maintain personal hygiene in a critical situation, it’ll make your life easier when such time comes. Accumulate all the supplies you may need so that in an emergency situation you’ll have enough of them. Show all your family members how to use water rationally, so that they won’t waste it in a survival situation.

If your whole family knows how to conserve water, it will be easy for all of you to get through the tough times. Because if you can’t use water rationally, you’ll need to spend too much time hauling water from a river or from any other source. You won’t allow your bathtub to be full of water if you realize that you have just several gallons of water per day.

If someone in your family doesn’t want to decrease the level of water usage, just make him haul the water. This person will change his mind really fast realizing that it’s not necessary to use as much water as he used to if it’s so difficult to get this water.

Now learn how to purify the little bit of water you may have before drinking it.