Is it safe to save your old milk jugs/1 gal. plastic, and fill them with water this December? Should I add clorox? And how much? Also, can any one make a meal list for 4 people for me? Two adults and two teenagers. Make it for one week. I can do the math to plan for a longer period. I heard Top Roman will hatch the weevals after a period of time. How long can foods like this be safe? Thanks again, I need your advice.

-- PBJ (Thanks@help.com), September 25, 1999

Answers

Don't use old milk/water jugs. The plastic is far too thin to safely use. Better to use old two liter bottles. Plastic milk jugs are also far too easy to allow 'bleed through' of other substances. (the plastic is increadibly porous compared to other types.) If you are really serious check out

www.watertanks.com.

great suppliers of equipment, but also for advice and info on the homepage. Possibly the best prices too.

As far as food...write down a menu of what you would eat in a week, or two, then apply as such. It doesn't take a genius.....

-- Billy-Boy (Rakkasn@Yahoo.com), September 25, 1999.

PBJ,

Stan is the Man! Great resource for answers to many questions - all in a single place with many links for those looking for more info. Here is the link:

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001QYV

You will find that if you 'swipe' this link with your mouse and paste it onto your browser's 'Location' window, then press the enter key, that the page will appear that answers your questions and should get you thinking about many more. The last part of the previous sentence is very important.

Sincerely,

-- Uhmm.. (jfcp81a@prodigy.com), September 25, 1999.

Good question, bad idea. Forget the milk jugs for the reasons posted above. 2 liter soda jugs are your best bet, and I also recommend watertanks.com

I bought the 2 1/2 gal "water pillows" -- a double lined bag with a spout. Great for squirreling around the house. Reasonable price (per gallon), too.

And ya, you gotta add clorox. I add 5 drops to my 2 liter soda bottles, but I haven't figured out how much I'll need for the 2 1/2 gal bags.

Good luck -- it's not too late to prepare.

Yet.

-- semper paratus (llmcl@usa.net), September 25, 1999.

Don't use milk jugs. Because of the porousity of the plastic you will never get all the milk residue out of it. Yum....6 month old milk dregs! Soda bottles are okay but I prefer the 50 gallon plastic drums the distributors get syrup for making coke, pepsi, Dr. Pepper, etc. in which I pay $10 for. Call your local bottlers and find out who gets their used drums.

http://www.glitchproof.com/glitchproof/filearchive.html will have the rest of the answers you likely need. There is a food storage FAQ, some food menu lists and spreadsheets. They also sell software for managing your food storage program.

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), September 25, 1999.

I'll try the link again for you:

watertanks.com

-- semper paratus (llmcl@usa.net), September 25, 1999.

Yes, cheap two liter clear plastic containers are most excellent for storing water, grains and other yummy substances. I don't know if they are suitable for kerosene and gasoline, so I won't suggest that they be used for fuel storage.

The manufacturers of soft drinks never wanted their products to leak out on to the store shelves while customers hem and haw over special discounts.

These clear plastic containers are hardy. I've been storing water in them for months, and NOT ONE HAS LEAKED.

However, the plastic, occluded milk gallon jugs are dubious for durability. I've had two of them slowly leak. Of course, I recycled them within my city's recycling program. No loss.

If you are adamant on not wasting any containers, then use the plastic milk jugs for containing fertilizer solutions and general watering of plants or basic transportation of nonpotable water.

You can't miss with basic common sense.

Remember: common sense is Y2K compliant.

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), September 25, 1999.

store what you use and use what you store. you can't go wrong that way. and if y2k ends up being a bump in the road (bitr), it's no loss because you'll use the stuff up anyway...eventually :-) (grin)

good luck!

-- maggie huntone (mah1t1@provide.net), September 26, 1999.

There are waterbags of many different sizes at http://www.tacda.org/.

This is the site for the American Civil Defense Association, which has some other things, too.

Their waterbags are slightly better than www.waterbags.com because they have both a fill and drain opening (with a faucet that comes with the larger bags). I bought 2, 250 gallon bags for under $200 w/shipping.

-- Dean -- from (almost) Duh Moines (dtmiller@midiowa.net), September 26, 1999.

In regards to the weevil hatching problem, many grain products and flour will hatch bugs after a period of time. In the meantime, if you store these products in a freezer, the bugs won't hatch. If times get really bad and you do get bugs in your foodstuff, you can use a sifter to strain out the bugs in flour. When I have gotten bugs in my rice, the bugs will float to the top a few minutes after the rice has been added to the water and can be easily removed. I know its not very appealing but then most people would be appalled to discover that there are trace amounts of rodent fecal material in flour as well. Good luck with your preps.

-- G.S. (hateyo@netscape.net), September 26, 1999.