Survival Sanitation: It all Begins with the Hands Section 3 for Part 1

Homemade Sanitizing and Handwashing Solution

Survival Sanitation: It all Begins with the Hands

by Tactical Intelligence on August 12th, 2011

In a recent article I talked about how to make your own chlorine bleach that can be used not only for water disinfection but for sanitation as well. To make a simple solution that can be used for hand sanitizing, you’ll want to add one cup of household bleach (or homemade bleach) to a gallon of water.

To use, after washing your hands with soap and water simply rinse your hands with the sanitizing bleach solution.

HOMEMADE ANTHRAX KILLER

For an even more effective disinfectant that is actually powerful enough to kill anthrax spores, you’ll want to add a cup of vinegar to the cup-to-gallon sanitizing solution above.

According to Norman Miner the president of MicroChem Lab, vinegar changes household bleach from alkaline to acidic which will make it 80 to 200 times more effective at being an antimicrobial product.

(Nancy Kerchevel – Bloomberg News) “Bleach has been used as a disinfectant for decades. People just assume it will kill everything on a countertop,” Miner said in an interview. “It’s one of the myths.”

Bleach can’t be bottled in an acidic state because it’s unstable, Miner said in an interview. After a day, it would start losing the chlorine that gives it its bleaching power.

Researchers tested the vinegar recipe on dried bacterial spores, considered the most resistant to disinfectants used on microbes, the Euless, Texas-based company said.

After researchers swabbed surfaces with the acidic dilution, all the spores were dead in 20 minutes, Miner said. An alkaline dilution left only 2.5 percent of the areas free of microbes after the same amount of time.

EMERGENCY AID

“In the event of an emergency involving Bacillus anthracis spores contaminating such environmental surfaces as counter tops, desk and table tops, and floors, for example, virtually every household has a sporicidal sterilant available in the form of diluted, acidified bleach,” Miner said in a statement.The vinegar-laced bleach also killed aspergillus negri, commonly recognized by most people as the black fungi that infect the tile grout of shower stalls, Miner said.

“Diluted bleach at an alkaline pH is a relatively poor disinfectant, but acidified diluted bleach will virtually kill anything in 10 to 20 minutes,” Miner said.

Keep in mind that this solution will lose it’s effectiveness after about a day, since it will start losing the chlorine that gives it it’s bleaching power. For household use, given the short effective shelf-life of this solution, you’ll want to make it in smaller amounts that can be used on a day-to-day basis.

Survival Sanitation: It all Begins with the Hands Section 2 for Part 1

Homemade Sanitizing and Handwashing Solution

Survival Sanitation: It all Begins with the Hands

by Tactical Intelligence on August 12th, 2011

Just like we preppers like to practice fire-making, off-grid cooking, cooking from our food storage and all the other skills we do during non-emergencies, it’s important that we “practice” getting in the habit of keeping our hands clean during normal times. That way, if things get bad — whether it’s 3-days or 3-years, we’ll have one less thing to think about. This also includes getting rid of habits that involve hand-to-mouth contact (other than eating of course).

HABITS TO DEVELOP

washing hands after going to the bathroom

washing hands before eating

washing hands after coming into contact with another person’s hands

sneezing or coughing into the crook of your elbow instead of your hands

HABITS TO AVOID

fingernail biting

chewing on objects (pens, pencils etc)

coughing or sneezing into your hands

general hand to near-mouth contact (many people have the habit of putting their hands near or on their mouth when they are deep in thought).

Survival Sanitation: It all Begins with the Hands Section 1 for Part 1

Survival Sanitation: It all Begins with the Hands

by Tactical Intelligence on August 12th, 2011

This is the first post in a three-part series on survival sanitation. In a survival situation, proper sanitation is of utmost importance if you want to avoid your family getting seriously sick.

If you add a lack of medical facilities due to grid-down issues, then staying healthy becomes even more crucial.

In this series I discuss the skills you need in order to avoid getting a

nd spreading disease, and how to deal with waste and sewage when your town and city services are no longer working.

This may be a bit cliché, but having clean hands is really the first step in staying sanitary in a survival situation. Since the hands are the primary contact point with every-day objects as well as between humans, they are also the top spreaders of disease. Hand washing — although it’s a simple practice — is the single most effective way to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

Diseases Spread through the Hands

The hands can spread disease caused by fecal-oral transmission (you or someone else goes to the bathroom, wipes, and doesn’t wash), indirect contact with respiratory secretions (coughing or sneezing into hands), and coming into contact with urine, saliva or other moist body substances (I won’t go there, but I’m sure you get the point).

Here is a list of the most common diseases that are easily spread by the hands:

DISEASES SPREAD THROUGH FECAL-ORAL TRANSMISSION

Ingesting even the tiniest particles of fecal material can infect you with any of the following:

salmonella

shigellosis (causes dysentry)

hepatitis A

giardia

enterovirus

amebiasis

campylobacteria

cholera

DISEASES SPREAD THROUGH INDIRECT CONTACT WITH RESPIRATORY SECRETIONS

influenza (flu)

Streptococcus

respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)

the common cold

DISEASES SPREAD BY CONTACT WITH BODILY FLUIDS (SALIVA, URINE, ETC)

cytomegalovirus

typhoid

staphylococcal organisms

Epstein-barr virus

Given the many types of diseases that are so easily spread through the hands it should be a given that hand washing be put at the top in terms of importance during an emergency. This cannot be overstated — if you want to prevent your family from suffering from disease, be it a mild case of diarrhea or worse, then this must become a high priority.

30 Uses for a Bandana

A bandana is another one of those things that is useful for a thousand things but nothing specific. It’s right up there with duct tape and rope. The things only weigh a couple ounces, they are dirt cheap, and are a must have in your Bug Out Bag or Urban Survival Gear. Here is just a short list of possible uses for a bandana.

1. Signal (also see signal mirror)
2. Neck Gaiter for cold weather
3. Tourniquet (But for Snake Bites use a Sawyer Extractor)
4. Pot Holder
5. Collecting Wild Edibles
6. Sun block for neck
7. Sling (first-aid – also see medical kits for you BOB)
8. Sling (as in David and Goliath)
9. Sling (for a staff )
10. Cordage (strips or as is)
11. Washcloth/Towel (Bathe out of a Collapsible Bucket)
12. Sweatband
13. Waist pack/pouch
14. Hobo Pack
15. Padding a hotspot
16. Cleaning Patches for Firearm
17. Bullet Patches for Muzzleloader
18. Gun Wipe Cloth (with oil)
19. Toilet Paper
20. Mark a Trail
21. Dish Rag
22. Napkin
23. Eye patch
24. Pre-water Filter (like Coffee Filters)
25. Clean Glasses and other lens
26. Ear Muffs
27. Bind a stone and toss a line over a limb
28. Dust Mask (in Urban Survival)
29. Wet and wear for Hot Weather
30. Sneezing