[Liberty1776]

I have a few questions about SHTF regarding health

1.) How do you plan to handle defecation during SHTF? Outhouse? Own septic tank? Is it far away from your home? Next to your home?

2.) Do you pack hand sanitizer in your BOB? Do you have soap/sanitizer in your home? I ask because preventing illness is a major part of survival. Germs have killed far more people than governments. Given that you will probably be doing some very unsanitary things (and being generally unclean) during SHTF, are you prepared?

3.) If SHTF lasts 10+ years, I doubt you have enough water purification tablets. Additionally, your 1 water purification system may break and you'd be unable to buy another if society had fallen apart. Do you keep more than 1? What's your setup?

 

[awalker19]

I have a septic tank. You could always dig holes. As for water I have a well but you could also build a solar distiller.

I guess you could stock up on things to make homemade soap. If you have goats I know you can make goats milk soap.

Whats the shelf life on hand sanitizer?

 

[curdog]

I have indoor plumbing with a septic system. If city water went down I would build a out house.And I would haul and boil the water or use Clorox bleach.

 

[metrowash]

If you have regular gravity flowing septic it's all good. Just fill the tank with water and flush normally. If you're careful about what you put in there a septic system can go five-ten years without being pumped out.

The real problem is going to be if you're on a sewer system that relies on pumps. Sewage will eventually back into people's homes, making them uninhabitable.

IF TSHTF ten years, most of us are toast. If someone does not figure out how to resupply the population with some food and basic sanitary/medical supplies within a year probably 50% + of the population would die off-just a guess there.

 

[sonicnef]

could you use some sawdust and a 5 gal bucket, then burn it daily?

 

[awildchipmunk]

could you use some sawdust and a 5 gal bucket, then burn it daily?

I dont know about burning it but you can make it into compost.

 

[Poison]

Sanitation in a city setting is a huge issue and would force most to leave if they haven't already become too sick from it.(health problems with vermin and vectors would be as much of an issue). Rural homes with septic systems would be fine and instead of getting it pumped you'd be using buckets to empty it every few years and haul it away to a site to possibly make better use of it(thats another whole story as far as using it for black powder ingrediants which was exactly what used to be done by the "honey dippers"way back in the days). As far as hand sanitizers and anti-bacterial soaps they need to be used very spareingly and never if possible in septic systems.They kill much of the good bacteria that breaks down waste in your tank and will cause it to backup much quicker!!!!
As far as backups for filtration goes water and pool filters can be improvised in many ways but the old faithful way for sanitary things falls back to good ole' boiling ....anything your eating with and even clothes and bedding every time its fesible
You need to be exposed to normal germs so your body is able to build up immunities and it does on its own...if you're that sacred about germs switch to pure silverware to eat with....the small amounts of siler you ingest from using the silverware is a natural antibiodic! =) and where the term "blue bloods" came from(Nobelman could afford silverware lower class peasants used wood)...high silver content in the blood stream turns bluish when cut and its exposed to the air!.....just look back to the old days for answers and see what people did right&wrong then!
Behave people..
Poison~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>

 

[Poison]

P.S. Just so you know"wildchipmunk" any waste from and animal that eats meat is not good for compost unless treated! You want the stuff from the vegitarians...lol =)

 

[curdog]

There is no use in hauling water from God knows where to flush the toilet when the out house can be used. If they are scared of the dark carry a light and a gun. Just watch for spiders.

 

[bowman]

Human being can by their nature only produce two things: babies and fertilizer. I'll put the fertilizer on the garden. Squat, dump, work it in with a hoe. Agriculture 101 in third world countries.

 

[Le Zouave]

I have a few questions about SHTF regarding health

1.) How do you plan to handle defecation during SHTF? Outhouse? Own septic tank? Is it far away from your home? Next to your home?

2.) Do you pack hand sanitizer in your BOB? Do you have soap/sanitizer in your home? I ask because preventing illness is a major part of survival. Germs have killed far more people than governments. Given that you will probably be doing some very unsanitary things (and being generally unclean) during SHTF, are you prepared?

3.) If SHTF lasts 10+ years, I doubt you have enough water purification tablets. Additionally, your 1 water purification system may break and you'd be unable to buy another if society had fallen apart. Do you keep more than 1? What's your setup?

1) An outhouse over a large hole a good distance from your home, water supply, etc is a good method. When the hole gets filled with too much faeces, simply dig a large hole nearby and move the outhouse to be positioned over that hole. As for toilet paper, old corncobs are what farmers here used prior to the advent of plumbing.

2) Hand sanitiser and soap are good for short-term, but they're not going to last. If you boil animal fat, add ash from burnt logs and let it harden, you've got a basic soap. Add horseradish root to the mix before it hardens, and you've got antiseptic soap.

3) If you get a large pot (like a Dutch oven) and put a brick (or other flat, large object) inside of it and put a smaller bowl on top of the brick, you've got a water distiller that will purify any water. Simply fill the contraption with water BELOW the level of the bowl on a brick (giving some room for the water to boil without splashing in it) and put the lid on it UPSIDE DOWN. If you want to speed the process along, putting ice/other cold stuff on the outside of the lid will speed up condensation. The fresh water drips down the curve of the pot's lid and falls into the bowl in the middle.

Also, contrary to what the communists who put fluoride and God knows what else into our water supply, almost all trace minerals come from food, and not water. According to the Straight Dope, all trace minerals found in water are readily available in foods and, despite their presence in water, food is the major source of them. So, I wouldn't be worried about losing any minerals due to drinking distilled water.

 

[brutalsun]

How did we ever survive before running water?
My dad who is only 53, tells me stories about him growing up in virginia. He remembers digging outhouses and his mom didn't get running water until he joined the Army. So he had to hand pump and take it inside. His house was heated by a cast iron stove that was always lit. So hypothetically speaking, it is possible to survive without modern ammenities if you talk to someone who used to do it the old way or try it yourself.
When the water purification stuff runs out I will go to boiling, and I being a young 30 will start diggin holes for the S**ter.

 

[bowman]

Heh, we got indoor water and plumbing when I was about 8 years old. I still laugh at all the "impoverished" people there are now with their plentiful food, TV, cars, etc.

 

[Swamp Shuck]

I have a few questions about SHTF regarding health

1.) How do you plan to handle defecation during SHTF? Outhouse? Own septic tank? Is it far away from your home? Next to your home?

2.) Do you pack hand sanitizer in your BOB? Do you have soap/sanitizer in your home? I ask because preventing illness is a major part of survival. Germs have killed far more people than governments. Given that you will probably be doing some very unsanitary things (and being generally unclean) during SHTF, are you prepared?

3.) If SHTF lasts 10+ years, I doubt you have enough water purification tablets. Additionally, your 1 water purification system may break and you'd be unable to buy another if society had fallen apart. Do you keep more than 1? What's your setup?

Most of my far away out buildings have outhouses. I'm experimenting with a wind pump water closet at the new house. For this house I make my own electricty so I will be able to take care of it for years. I have a composting toliet at the sugar shack just because it is usually cold when I'm using that and I like to be able to start a fire, drink tea, and have a warm seater to sit on.:

Hand sanitizer works less every time you use it until you wash your hands again. For example, the first time you use it it will kill most germs, the second time you use it it will kill less germs, the third time you use it should be the last until you can wash your hands. Once you wash your hands you can begin using it again. This is the rule as I nurse I have to follow when working with people. Some of the new "super" germs are not affected at all by hand sanitzer but respond to plain soap and water. Hand sanitizer should not be used by most people and then only for emergencies. Most people have access to soap and water and that works much, much better.

Just a point, rubbing you hands on cedar or pine needles will sanitize your hands just as much as using hand sanitizer three times in a row. It will sanitize your hands more that using hand sanitizer 4 or more times.

I have my own wells, most are deeper than they need to be. We live on an ancient sea bed that turned into prairies after the sea was realeased. These prairies burned over many centuries. The water that falls from the skies must filter through many layers of charcoal, sand, limestone, and salt before it reaches my aquifer. I'll let nature do the filtering. It usually works better than any man made filters.

blt

 

[Swamp Shuck]

How did we ever survive before running water?
My dad who is only 53, tells me stories about him growing up in virginia. He remembers digging outhouses and his mom didn't get running water until he joined the Army. So he had to hand pump and take it inside. His house was heated by a cast iron stove that was always lit. So hypothetically speaking, it is possible to survive without modern ammenities if you talk to someone who used to do it the old way or try it yourself.
When the water purification stuff runs out I will go to boiling, and I being a young 30 will start diggin holes for the S**ter.

People like your father have built up their immune system to most of the germs that can be spread by flies and feces. There was a time when people got sick and they either died or they developed a stronger immune system. Those times are mostly gone. Now we try to kill off any little germ that gets near us so our immune systems are much weaker than they use to be. This means that we are primed for a disease to run through our closely packed population with poor immune systems and kill millions. The problem with that is then all those germs are released by the dead bodies and even people with healthy immune systems have a hard time dealing with that. With our fears we have set ourselves up for a rather large fall if we don't have some way to remove our waste to a place where flies can't reach it and then land on our food.

blt

 

[kahn]

Whats the shelf life on hand sanitizer?

Till it dries up...


Bathrooms, as long as you can tote water in you can use your toilet IF you have a septic tank, public sewers will no doubt back up when the pumps are shut off. If you don't have a septic system, outhouse it baby. Just don't crap anywhere near a water supply...

water- my neighbor taught me this one. Build a still out of a 10 gallon pressure cooker, and some copper pipe coiled inside a large diameter pvc pipe filled with water for a condenser. Build it right and it will last for years. Use a brick "rocket stove" that produces high heat and uses little fuel to heat the water. Wala! water purification.

Human being can by their nature only produce two things: babies and fertilizer. I'll put the fertilizer on the garden. Squat, dump, work it in with a hoe. Agriculture 101 in third world countries.

Compost it for a few months first with a mix of rotting vegetation or you could end up with a ecoli issue, and w/ limited resources that could easily kill you.

 

[lrsu121]

You can compost human waste. The book "The Humanure Handbook" goes into great detail. I have used 3-4 different compost toilet systems over the last 10 years and they all worked well. The easiest method in a SHTF situation is to poop in the bucket and cover with sawdust or some other high carbon organic substance. Once the bucket is full, empty the bucket into a compost pile and cover with a foot of hay or leaves. Once the pile is 3-4 feet tall, start a second pile. By the time the second pile is full, the first pile should be about finished. I always finish the compost off by feeding it to the worms in my worm composting system.

 

[ken]

Since I live at my BOL, my plans will probably be different that yours. To answer your specific questions....
1. I have composting toilets, so I wont have to change to a different system to deal with human waste.
2. I have a rain water collection system as backup, and my household water pressure pump is run off solar, so I plan to just use soap and water as normal, no change.
3. Mostly the same answer as above, I will run my deep well pump with grid power until that is gone, then switch to generator power, and last to rain water collection. My well is too deep to be run from solar at the moment, nothing is perfect. I currently have 6000 gallons of water storage which should get me through a year or so without recharge including doing laundry. I do keep sufficient fuel to refill the tanks once, adding another year, without rain.

If I lived in a city, or was dependent of a public water supply, I would at least have a plan to address a temporary loss of the municipal water supply. Frequently in winter, water mains will break, leaving you without water for a few days. You should at the minimum address this concern, investigate either building a "sawdust toilet", or buying a bucket toilet for short term use from a camping supply store. I would take a look at the Reliance hassock toilet, about 22 bucks at wal-mart, they are more attractive and would store easily in a closet. Using a plastic bag liner for easy cleanup, and peat moss to cover the waste to eliminate the odor. Buy a bag or bail of peat moss to use in the toilet, apartment dwellers can put the bag on the balcony. The peat moss wont be a waste regardless, because you should have a gardening plan. You can either toss the bag in the trash, or dump the bucket under a tree in the backyard for composting. Another option you should already have is to keep several 5-6 gallon water jugs on hand to fill the back of your toilet, to have a few extra flushes. If you live in an apartment, consider what life will be like if your toilet backs up for a week. Investing 25 bucks to avoid that possibility would be money well invested. The "Hmanure" book is available on line as a free download, it is a good read.

 

[BAD WOLF]

Hi everyone I wish I'd thought to look around this site for the sanitation session as I just started a thread with an excellent idea for sanitation

I found a cool YouTube video with A great designed system

https://youtu.be/7ZmLiF8Bp30

 

[KeyserSoSay]

Hi everyone I wish I'd thought to look around this site for the sanitation session as I just started a thread with an excellent idea for sanitation

I found a cool YouTube video with A great designed system

https://youtu.be/7ZmLiF8Bp30

Wow! Video is great just for a preliminary glimps at what SHTF looks like. As far as the revolutionary toilet, meh. Thousands of years and no one in India's yet figured out how to poop in a hole and then poop in a different hole once it fills up (we call that an outhouse).