How to Store and Transport Clean Drinking Water

If you are like most Americans, you are aware that water supplies are not as dependable as we would like. Over 2100 contaminants have been discovered in drinking water thus far. Our water source may be free of some of these, but who knows which are still present?

Many reading this will have acted on these warnings and stopped drinking faucet or well water. For you only filtered water is worthy of your family or yourself. That means you are either purchasing bottled water, or that you have bought a water filter and are purifying it yourself.

The problem is, when you go on vacation or on a camping trip, you don’t want to trust the water supplies available to have the same healthy water you enjoy at home. If you are purchasing bottled water, then you’ll take along a case or two.  This option will probably provide you with safe water, but it is the most expensive. Over eight billion gallons of filtered water are sold annually at prices at times exceeding gasoline. Bottled water may not be as pure is the label indicates but it would be fine for camping.  However, keep in mind that if you discard the plastic bottles you use on your vacation, you only add to the environmental problem of plastics that could sit in land fills for centuries.

Some of you have purchased a gravity feed filter. In the long run, you will save money over purchasing bottled water. If you have room, why not pack your water filter in the car and filter all drinking and cooking water on your vacation? This would provide all the water you need and would guarantee it to be as pure as you get at home. Neither will you have the problem of discarding bottles.

What if you either have a built in filter, or don’t have room to take your gravity fed water filter with you? In that case, a little planning ahead would still provide the same water you drink at home. You filter extra water and store it to take with you.

The problem is, in what do you store and transport it? You know the water is clean when it leaves the filter. You certainly don’t want it deemed unsafe because of the container. This is a very real concern. The PET bottles (made of polyethylene terephthalate) used by most bottled water companies, are, as far as we know now, safe as long as they are kept in cool places. Water stored in them at higher temperatures for a period of time might become contaminated with chemicals from the bottle. Reusing them is not sanitary either.

Another option is to store your filtered water in the hard plastic bottles used for water coolers, or the smaller ones used for sports drinks. They look safe but the National Institutes of Health recently tested bisphenol used to make these bottles, and found it caused neurological problems in babies before birth. The long range effect on others is still the subject of further study. So that option may be out of the picture for you.

This narrows our choices even more. We want the pure water from home but can’t bring the filter. If we transport it, we are in danger of ingesting substances leeched into the water from the containers that may harm us or our families. Solution- filter extra water at home prior to the vacation and store it in glass containers. This would include jars, bottles, and glass lined thermoses.

This choice solves several problems. We will have the clean water we want without the problem of discarded bottles. Further we have the peace of mind that the bottle will not contaminate the water. The bottles can be washed and reused without danger to you or your family.