Posted on 10/07/2012 12:20:20 PM PDT by Kartographer
There are some topics that people maybe sometimes do not want to read or hear about, or other folks just thinking that is not too important when SHTF. Hygiene is something that we all agree is important, but how dirty is gonna be is other thing.
If you look for example to definition of Cholera you can see this: „Cholera is an acute enteric infection caused by the ingestion of bacterium Vibrio cholerae present in faecally contaminated water or food. Primarily linked to insufficient access to safe water and proper sanitation, its impact can be even more dramatic in areas where basic environmental infrastructures are disrupted or have been destroyed.„
I already mentioned that I suffered (together with lot of folks from that time) few serious cases of diarrhea, I mean cases when you can not lift your head up for days, i was so exhausted.
Did I have Cholera? I do not have clue, no hospitals, no labs, no doctors. Probably yes. All what I could do is to take fluids, menthol tea, chamomile tea and „Rosa Canina“ tea.
(Excerpt) Read more at shtfschool.com ...
Heat will also break down hypochlorite, but it is the ultraviolet that does it quickly.
Freezing isn’t even a danger unless you live in arctic realms. I store the stuff I use for algae control in my fire tank for around 5 years by the batch, since its cheaper that way, and have never had any problem. Just the whiff when the bottle is opened will tell. It remains quite effective, and kills the algae in the tank instantly. It also bleaches clothing, even eats holes in most cotton almost instantly. Just one little drop on your levis cuts through in a flash.
And the smell around the tank for the next week or so is just like a swimming pool.
Just keep the stuff in the dark.
If there was room in the house, I'd have one now.
/johnny
I enjoy watching the Discovery shows up in Alaska. I love the scenery and independence they show. It has also been sobering regarding the level of fitness we will need to have.
One show had a 55 yr old guy (about) who walked 10 miles through 2 feet of snow in -40 degree weather. The next day he walked back carrying a 70lb snowmobile engine to fix the one that left him stranded.
Another show had a guy collecting logs from the river. He cut the logs into sections about 4-5 feet long. Then he picked them up and stacked about 50 of them. They were decent sized logs and probably weighed at least 200 pounds each.
No, Potassium hydroxide is called Lunar hydroxide, or Lunar Potash. Lye is by definition sodium hydroxide.
Potassium is somewhat more plentiful in wood than sodium in most cases, in fact the presence of sodium or boron in measurable quantities in the soil will generally prevent the growth of trees.
I think you “channel” back to the old days. Every woman knew Monday was wash day. Tuesday was ironing day.
Clothes also got mended, not tossed. My mother sewed all my clothes. I didn't have clothes from a store until I graduated high school and was going to college that fall. They took me to Dallas, to Sanger Harris store, to the clothes department and told me to buy anything I wanted. It was a strange experience because I had never tried on clothes at a store.
My father bought Sun Oil stock the many years he worked for them. That stock money put me through four years of college and there was still plenty of stock left. He was a frugal man who saved.
Have you looked at Lehmans wringer washers?
Have you looked at Lehmans wringer washers?
Having spent a number of years without regular indoor flush toilets (on a few occaions, total several years), I would highly recommend reading “Humanure”, it is online. It is the best book I’ve read about how to deal with excrement in a clean, safe and easy way without regular plumbing.
Burying human (or any kind of) excrement in plastic bags will so slow down composting that the crap will remain nasty for a long, long time. Building or making a simple composting toilet and using compostable material such as sawdust (from raw lumber or wood, not kiln dried lumber), leaves, leaf mould, dirt, or chipper shredded leaves/sticks etc), and done properly, composts crap quickly and easily. I have done it and I highly recommend it.
Pit outhouses are doable but much more nasty and can pollute ground water if the water table is high. Even a trench latrine is better than a pit outhouse or plastic bags. It composts very quickly if the trench is not very deep, and a movable little “outhouse” can be used. But composting toilets can even be used indoors. When done right, there is practically no smell at all.
I remember also bath once a week and what mom said was just “freshen up” daily with the sink and a washcloth... Her farm was sold in 1943 0r 04 cannot remember which.. We are all spoiled with modern conveniences...:O(
/johnny
Push comes to shove in an emergency, I can rig up whatever water and electricity is required. I'd rather work on that project than handwash.
/johnny
/johnny
When Hubby and I went camping (with the 5 kids) some of the state forests didn’t have toilets....we had a simular toilet to what you describe, no bucket, just blue bags the seat came down over and then bury the bags....after a hard rain, those blue bags would start to show up....I laughed at it then and now....
I have read much about composting and composting toilets and looked at/read everything Lehmans sells. I can't build a composting toilet and have no where to put such in my small townhouse if I bought one - gave up on that idea. I'm going to have to bury it.
I live in town and that limits me, too. I actually have a stack of large, strong, paper bags and would likely use those in potties instead of plastic bags. Some of these paper bags are made for trash compactor units (have a thin coating of plastic inside them) but most of them are just paper I bought at Kroger. One day I saw these large strong paper bags on the bottom shelf where plastic trashbags are and they are not expensive. I don't recall the price but was surprised it wasn't more.
I actually got them to put regular household trash in. I have an outdoor fireplace and got that to burn trash in. Didn't want to put trash in plastic bags to burn plastic in that fireplace, so got paper bags. I need to get more.
Unless I go live with the Amish, going to have to bury human waste. I'll find a place to dump urine instead of burying it but I don't know now where that will be.
I grew up using an outhouse. We had a shower but no potties. Think I was in 9th grade before we had indoor potties. Now, I have three regular potties in my house - no more outhouses.
I’ve used various kinds of outdoor/alternative toilets, probably for about 7 years all told. My first introduction to the “Humanure” type of composting toilet was in a city house on a small, small city lot. The owners collected chipper shredded stuff from the city and used that in their toilet/bucket, and had two compost bins - square, made of chicken wire or somethign similar and stakes. There was no odor at all, and it all composted fast. So it can be done on a city lot, you just need sawdust/chipper shredder stuff or something to lay down after each human deposit in the bucket. It helps to have a number of buckets and line them outside.
Urine is a different thing; pouring down a street drain, maybe? Making a small trench to put it in?
We used a 5 gal bucket (well, we had a number of them) for a composting toilet, hub built a little frame with an attached toilet seat, and we slid the bucket underneath it. I would think if you have room outside to bury it, you might have room to make a compost bin and have a pile of stuff to compost with it. We have a sawmill nearby and got a good load of log sawdust; we’ve also used chipper shredded stuff which works just as well, but it takes up more room.
Humanure is online, I would recommend it to anyone who is considering what to do with excrement if the city or town sewage system doesn’t work. Also on rural homes with wells, it’s a big waste of water to use flush toilets if there is no electricity to pull the water out of the well; and even septic tanks sometimes get full.
http://www.ifma-austin.org/lawton/100_0736.JPG
Lehmans has a washer that looks a little like this one. Comes with a gas engine too. I think it is cool. I remember this kind of washer being used in the basement for the heavy/dirties with my greatgrandmother’s yellow soap, which must have been 30 years old in soap boxes under the stairs.
It is made from wood ash.
________________
Strong enough to float an egg/
It is made from wood ash.
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Strong enough to float an egg/
Marcella, I know that I can have a three year supply of bathroom tissue on hand, femininie supplies or dish soap....
But I am also thinking of how I can substitute if the dark ages hit.
“But I am also thinking of how I can substitute if the dark ages hit.”
Of what would your dark ages consist? Tell me and we’ll fix it.
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