Emergency Water Purification: How to Safely Add Bleach for Storage & Disasters

In the event of an earthquake, or indeed any natural disaster, basic elements such as clean water, food and shelter become paramount. If you live in an earthquake prone area, or just want to be prepared it is prudent to keep a store of water and other necessity just in case. Adding bleach to water chlorinates it and this can be done prior to storage, or in the case of an emergency bleach can be added to water to cleanse it chemically before consumption.

Things You'll Need

• Gallon containers
• Eye dropper
• Liquid chlorine bleach

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Instructions

• 1

  Fill gallon containers with water. If temperatures dip below freezing, leave a couple of inches at the top to allow for expansion.

• 2

  Add eight drops of chlorine bleach---administered with the eye dropper---to each gallon of water; use 16 drops if the water is cloudy. Mix the bleach in. Only bleach containing sodium hypochlorite as the active ingredient can be used. Fragranced or bleach with soaps added are unacceptable.

• 3

  Leave the water to stand for 30 minutes. Smell the water. If it smells of chlorine then cap and store. If it doesn't, add another 16 drops of bleach per gallon and wait a further 30 minute before repeating the smell test. Store if it smells like chlorine. For emergency situations, if the water doesn't smell like chlorine after the second addition discard the water and find a new water source.