Is it safe to drink water boiled in a tarp?

I'm reading Dave Canterbury's book "Advanced Bushcraft" and he says that if you didn't have a container, one thing you could do if you had to is dig a hole in the ground and put your tent tarp down into the hole and boil your water in that. Rock boiling of course. You don't want to burn through the tarp though, so you would make some tongs with some sticks and hold the hot rocks in the water without touching the sides for a moment until the rock isn't as hot.

But tarps are made of different materials, would any of the tarps on the market leach anything toxic into the water?

If you're that hard up... do it.

Plenty of water sources out there that may not be USDA Approved.....Lack of water will kill you quick.
Do what you have to do....

I don't know why you'd bother with the tarp. Something I've done is dig that hole, wok-shaped or shallow-bowl shaped, so the sides aren't quite vertical, couple gallons or three of capacity...re-tamp some dirt, clayish if possible, back onto the walls while fitting together stones to form the walls, tapping them into the soil behind them...imbed stones at the ground surface around the hole to stabilize the immediate area and control what falls into the hole accidentally...clean it, and now you have a stew pot or water hole for rock boiling if ever you can't find big enough natural containers of some kind. Just use what little shells you do have, which I think are almost useless by themselves, to transport water from your raw source.

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Originally Posted by WalkingTree

I don't know why you'd bother with the tarp. Something I've done is dig that hole, wok-shaped or shallow-bowl shaped, couple gallons or three of capacity, so the sides aren't quite vertical...re-tamp some dirt, clayish if possible, back onto the walls while fitting together stones to form the walls, tapping them into the soil behind them...imbed stones at the ground surface around the hole to stabilize the immediate area and control what falls into the hole accidentally...clean it, and now you have a stew pot or water hole for rock boiling if ever you can't find big enough natural containers of some kind. Just use what little shells you do have, which I think are almost useless by themselves, to transport water from your raw source.

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Luv to see some pics.

Here's bamboo with palm thongs, boiled river water, tasted great.

http://i905.photobucket.com/albums/a...pst5aczn4s.jpg

No major problem jumps out at me with that solution. Tarp in hole in ground, rocks, cluster of logs or whatever is much faster than making a water holding container by digging/burning out a log. Also if you do this other method in just dirt or clay or random wood you need to consider the toxicity of that. Obviously you want to be sure stick tongs and "hot" rocks are not toxic.

Muddy water tastes terrible and clay or plants rotting in the water source may be toxic so try to filter out these first. There are many different ways to do that. Tripod with fabric holding sand, charcoal, "safe" organic matter like grass straw if you know your plants. Or just your T-Shirt. Whatever works. Also a gypsy well if soil/sand/clay looks fairly clean and non-toxic and EPA has not dumped toxic mine water on it recently. Many other ways to filter water. Move water with a bit of your tarp if that is all you have. Keep your canteen pure! But there are many things to boil water in like pot that fits on bottom of your canteen.

If you are boiling water in a tarp.... you have bigger problems than worrying about stuff leaching in the water from the tarp.
Kinda like jumping out of an airplane and worrying if the parachute will chaffe.
With that said, most tarps are either cheap polyethylene, nylon coated in silicon, nylon coated in polyurethane, or polyester coated in silicon or polyurethane. Painters drop cloths are usually LDPE. A canvas tarp is cotton and can be coated in wax, or some type of petroleum product.

By the way, as far as bugs in the water goes...if it is boiling...bugs are dead.

Mmmmmm. River water. LOL. We have sour oranges along the rivers that cut the poopy taste.

I'm with finallyme. I'd have to be pretty thirsty to boil water in a tarp. Lot's of chemicals to leach into the water. But if it were that or die of thirst I guess I'd try it. You could always you birch bark assuming you have birch trees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TdDG6l9sIs

How to make a birch bark bowl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS8Qk2asAdk

Nylon 500° Polystyrene (HI) 390° Nylon (6/6) 525° Only if you are that hard up

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Originally Posted by madmax

Luv to see some pics.

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Arg, sorry. I'm always the last to get any new electronic device, and have rarely bothered owning a camera anyway. It's rare for me to even have a phone of any kind, and I've never been one to take and keep pics of things as I go through life. 'Bout the only electronic device that I have which is more advanced than a clock radio made in the seventies or eighties is the home desktop that I use to visit this site. Used to even just use a public library for my internet activities. Such things are just nothing that I ever cared that much about. Except for the good sense that it is to take something like a phone with you out into the wild, I wouldn't be going out there for using a phone or taking pictures. I'm the one who you wouldn't have to worry about walking into something or have a wreck because I'm texting or on the phone. I certainly wouldn't want to lug around cameras and talk into them if I were on history's ALONE. One time I lived purposely, by choice, without a t.v. in the house nor any phone service at all (had music going 24/7 though, if you saw me on ALONE I'd be pounding on a drum during my off-times that I made and having my own pow-wow).

Anyway, all that off-topic jibber jabber is just to apologize for the fact that I won't have any pics or vids of anything to offer in here.

Btw, question: what kind of soil would you look for when specifically looking for carbon content to filter water?

I can imagine a situation where the raccoons or black bears knocked down your food bag with cook pot and ran off with it leaving you with just a tarp to cook with. Not that unusual for them to climb up on the branch cord is tied to chew on it or just break the branch. Raccoons have run off with fairly large items that did not even smell like food and we never found the items or saw the raccoon. They are evil!

Especially when using fresh cut wood around food and boiling water it is a good idea to be able to identify plant species and know what you are allergic to. Certain yew (pacific) and ash are especially toxic for many people, the dust and sap is often the major problem some will restrict your breathing or increase the chance you could bleed out if you get cut, synergistic with medication you are taking for heart. I.e. someone may say they have used this plant branch for years and never died, you use it to cook with, get a bad cut and bleed to death. So know your plants! Here is one of several lists:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis30.pdf

If you use this tarp method you could put a piece of bark at the bottom to prevent the hot rocks from melting thru the tarp but be sure the bark, sticks or other rocks don't have any toxins or allergens on them that you specifically have issues with. Try it out in your back yard with a triangle or square box of logs or bricks, stones with tarp in it, get some round stones from beside a river or lake collect some rain water in a pan or bucket. See how you like water that tastes like fire and smoke. If you get sick you will be near your primary doctor. I have been sick from impure water and food many times and never died. For Dysentery Imodium AD fixed in a few hours before I dehydrated very badly, Hepatitis A took months, Giardia and other parasites took a while and medication was painful. Tapeworm coming out from below freaked me out but not really a big deal, only concern was how much more medication until they were all out. But whatever, more motivation for me to not eat stuff that has not been cooked and purify water very carefully. Live and learn or pass on.


BTW if you are one of those people that feed your pets raw meat you probably know that you just need to treat them for parasites on a regular basis, not that big of a deal. Some people can do this with water. My sister had a strong resistance to water borne parasites when we were kids but I reacted more adversely to them and the medication to treat for them so learned to be careful. I pack a lot of water and keep the lip and lid to my canteen very clean. Hiking with the squirts is not fun! In a canoe you can more easily rinse out your shorts, sorry TMI.

Birch bark as far as I know is not toxic or an allergen for most people but not available in the south. Juniper bark may work or maybe cypress but I have never tried it.

I don't know about all the species of Birch but it appears by what is written at this web site that a person could overdose on the leaves of some Birch trees, perhaps the same if you boiled a lot of drinking water or cooked food in bowls make from Birch Bark. But I don't know.

http://www.botanical-online.com/engl...cinalbirch.htm

http://beforeitsnews.com/survival/20...3-2502108.html

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Originally Posted by WalkingTree

Btw, question: what kind of soil would you look for when specifically looking for carbon content to filter water?

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I would use well washed sandy soil near a body of water to filter and charcoal from the fire, preferably something like oak that has been covered with dirt or ash to burn in low oxygen to form charcoal. Non-coal carbon filters can be moss that has a little bit of iodine in it naturally but not enough to kill everything. Very dry grass, wild mint, salvia or leaves that do not have a lot of tannins, test out most are very bad about this. Regardless the water will most likely taste terrible. Wild mints and salvias don't taste very good most of the time.

http://priorproperplanningpppp.blogs...er-filter.html

Not sure about this link be careful what you filter though does not make it worse. Same with video you find about it on youtube.

This basic concept has been around for hundreds of years. In the spectrum of ways people's brains approach problem solving there are the formula folks and the general concepts people who improvise. Sort of like the technicians versus the engineers and scientists but most of us are some where in-between or swing back and forth: will use a simple formula or watch a youtube video and follow the instruction but try to understand the scientific concepts behind it at the same time. I.e. we cannot be put in a box or pigeon holed. As with boiling water in an improvised "bowl". Many ways to do it. No one right way, many ways it can go wrong or be less than desirable but if it is as good as you can do then it will get you by. Learn to do it better for next time.

TXyakr - Thanks. But I was wondering specifically about how certain soils have a good carbon content in whatever fashion or another which is allegedly good for filtering water because of it. I would always boil anyway no matter what else I do, but this is just the next thing on my list of things I haven't found out enough about yet.

Charcoal has carbon content...soils don't, ????.....unless you are considering plant matter or debris, duff, to be carbon?
For filtering I would try clean sand as a media.

BTW.....talk has kinda been about "heating" water in tarps.....releasing nasty's and such.
Animal hides have been used forever as a "Pot" for heating liquids with hot stones.

What do you feel about "collecting rain water" in those tarps?

I do...and don't worry about it too much.

Serious folks I would never boil water in a tarp - however water is 212° and most tarps are above that temp -it should work as previously posted. I have seen recycled PET bottles boiled in the field over a small fire.


But give this a moment. The capture square footage of a tarp can be pitched correctly to fill a bucket of rain water in most places of the Earth. An 8x10 is fine with the right amount of Paracord! Hunter I agree with you on this.

No carbon - no sandy soil - no parasites or mess,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, fogggetta bout it.

Obviously rain water would be better IF it was available, but if you had ever spent much time in many parts of the western 2/3rd of the USA or many other parts of the world you would know that it can go many days or even weeks with no rain. Across many miles of terrain your only source of water may be some muddy puddles and you may even need to dig down in low spots to get to these if you have the knowledge of where to dig. How many days have you gone waiting for rain in a high desert out west? How far can you walk in day time temperatures over 100F with no water? To say a person can hike 3 days with none in these conditions is nonsense. Sitting in the shade and then a medical evacuation to an ER perhaps. Not all wilderness conditions are the same. If I only camped in easy places I would not have half the skills I do.

Edit: 4WD fun in the desert with a friend and your vehicle breaks down, no phone service and not a holiday weekend with lots of other people around you may want to follow this advice. Also the author mentioned it but animals often leave their shady daytime resting places at night and go down to watering holes, so if you see their slight often not easy to detect trails between plants and scat droppings (fresher ones), they might lead you to some water. Then the next day you can use a mirror or whatever to signal for rescue or just walk out of there beginning at dawn, first light. Leave an arrow of stones pointing your direction at your vehicle obviously. All common sense. These desert watering holes if you find them are usually very nasty full of animal feces and pigs or others have been rolling in them so whatever you have to filter and purify with is a darn good idea. You should absolutely have a tarp on you 4wd vehicle, or remove the canvas from the jeep you rented and take it with you. Buy the rental service an new one later. Use that to purify your water if you find any. Next time buy a 5-10 gallon or larger jug for a few hours of fun in the desert just in case. Hey its not like I never did anything quite this foolish...

http://www.theactivetimes.com/how-su...g-water-desert

If you boil water in a plastic container don't put it over the fire, put it next to the fire or preferably coals, NOT flames. Try to turn it every minute or so unless the plastic is soft then don't touch it at all just turn the rock it is sitting on if you can without tipping it. Best to just be patient and look for bubbles. That way the water will heat up and not just the plastic container. If you slowly heat water in a glass container it can work as well. Absolutely a last resort option. Also very easy to cook or just boil water in a metal pot next to a fire or coals not necessarily over it, flat rocks, stack of gravel or just dirt/sand.

Almost all plants alive or dead have a high carbon content by dry mass (water removed) of between 45-50%. This theoretically has the ability to absorb impurities in water. But if you can remove or volatilize off most of the other elements in the biomass (wood, straw etc.) and create a low ash charcoal it can work better to remove impurities then use a washed sand to remove the bits of charcoal. Much more difficult than it sounds, your final water will most likely still taste terrible in my experience but trying to go a long way without water in a dry hot dusty desert land is not wise. If you find some water purify it as best you can and drink up. Or just stay on the East Coast with those folks in their limited view of reality, based on a lack of experience.

http://www.fao.org/forestry/17111/en/

I knew all soil (or almost) has carbon, and where it comes from (flora), but I'd heard casual mention of "because of it's high carbon content it cleans water to an extent", I was wondering if this was referring to certain kinds of soils more so than others. Guess not though.

?? - It's been said in here that normal charcoal from a fire doesn't really do much for water (non-activated).

Yea, rainwater's the best...until your collection method, if it isn't clean itself...

...it fascinates me to watch one of these survival shows where it's pouring rain and they're cold and have to watch out for hypothermia but reflecting on how thirsty they are and can't find any water - don't know how to get water.