(Bugout.news) Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” which essentially means, in modern vernacular, that it is important to maintain good sanitation and proper hygiene.
One of the most difficult tasks when modern society collapses into something resembling an average Syrian town these days will be maintaining proper cleanliness and hygiene – but at the same time, it will be vital because cleanliness and hygiene will lead to better health and, literally, will keep you alive.
That said, hygiene is not something everyone considers before zero hour, when you find yourself facing the prospect of staying put and being swallowed up by a rampaging society, and grabbing your gear and heading for your pre-selected bugout location.
Getting there will take just a day or two, but once there, you’ll settle into a routine that will get you through the worst of times. And that routine must include hygiene maintenance. Here are some ways to keep yourself as clean as possible, which will help fight disease and lower your risk of infections:
— Use Mother Nature: Rainwater makes a great resource for a number of reasons. You can use it to water crops, purify it to drink and, of course, use it to bathe with. If you’ve got a secondary clean-water source use that for survival, and collect rainwater so you can wash and bathe regularly. Large plastic containers and tubs work well; have some at your bugout location for this purpose.
— Stockpile hygiene maintenance goods: Think about how long it takes you to go through, on average, a tube of toothpaste or a toothbrush, and get enough supply to last you for several months. Teeth will be especially important to maintain, so several toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste and containers of floss should be stockpiled at your location. Consider also bath soap, hand sanitizer, an old-time razor and paper towels as well. Baking soda makes for good toothpaste and you can store it long-term.
— Control your trash: You’re going to make garbage no matter how frugal you are living, so you’re going to have to figure out a way to dispose of it. Probably the best way will be to bury it; you will cut down on the smell and reduce the potential spread of disease. But you’ll have to do more than just throw a little dirt on it; your trash is liable to attract critters anyway, but the deeper you bury it, the less likely they will be able to dig it up. You can also consider burning your garbage and then burying it, but if you can’t risk someone seeing your smoke, this isn’t an option.
— Control your human waste: Going Number 1 and Number 2 doesn’t stop just because society has taken a turn for the worse. There are several ways to deal with human waste, one of the most effective, of course, being to bury it. You can also dig a latrine trench for urination. Like garbage, though, your restroom facilities should be well away from your campsite. We’ll cover this in a future post.
— Keep food out: Food preparation will be part of your everyday existence (which, naturally, will contribute to your daily buildup of trash that you’ll need to dispose of properly). Like a latrine area and garbage dump, food preparation should not be done where you live and sleep. Food will attract not just critters but also insects and bugs, some of which will likely be poisonous.
— And speaking of brushing your teeth, set up another separate area for oral hygiene (yes, this is a lot of separate areas to establish, but all for a reason – to keep you healthy).
— Cleaning clothes: If you’ve got a creek nearby that is a great place to wash clothes, but if you’re using that as your water source (after sterilizing it, of course), that isn’t such a good idea. A better idea is to have something you can wash clothes in, like a large plastic or aluminum tub, away from your water source.
That last point is very important and needs to be mentioned by itself: None of the areas you establish for various purposes should be close to your water sources. The last thing you want is seepage that will contaminate your water.
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