Normally, when you think about survival situations, the last thing on your mind is sanitation and hygiene. You are primarily focused on not having enough food and water, having shelter from the elements, or threats from other people.
But a good sanitation and hygiene plan is vital for you. Especially in our big cities, when something happens to prevent trash from being picked up, you will immediately see many problems developed such as health threats and pests out there in force – so you can imagine how bad it would be in a true survival event.
You need a plan in place to provide you with a clean environment not only for health reasons, but for your comfort as well. You have to know how to maintain cleanliness for your body, your campsite or home, for cooking, and more.
If you don’t have a plan in place, it will be easy for diseases to break out and cause issues that you may not have medical help for at the time. There may be a disruption in supply chains or even access to medical professionals to help you if you get sick.
When we talk about sanitation and hygiene, they are similar, but have very specific roles. With sanitation, you’re looking at the plan you need to have in place to remove human waste and other waste such as food scraps, leftovers, spoiled food, etc.
Hygiene is something that you want to have in place as a good practice to keep your body clean, especially your hands and other places like your private parts – so that you’re not spreading germs or even getting yourself sick.
When you don’t have a good sanitation and hygiene plan, you might find that your water is contaminated, you are attracting wildlife, and communicable diseases are spreading more easily.
Important Sanitation and Hygiene Issues to Consider in a Survival Situation
First up, you need to look at the different problem areas that you need to be considering for future potential survival events when it comes to sanitation and hygiene. There are two different scenarios you might have to consider.
The first is sanitation and hygiene in terms of hunkering down at your own home on your property and what you can do about it from there. The other is considering these two issues from the perspective of having to bug out in the wilderness and the very unique challenges you’ll be facing in that situation.
Keep in mind that even though you have regular trash pickup and sewer services right now at home, that doesn’t mean that in a major survival event, those would still be operational. If the power grid goes down for longer periods fresh water treatment plants stop and sewage treatment and pump stations stop working.
You have to think about how you would get rid of trash, what you would do if your plumbing and sewer was not operational, how you would keep your house clean enough so that your family inside did not get sick.
Basically, you want to think in three different areas – your personal hygiene, waste management, and food and water safety. If you have a plan in place to address all three of these, you should be able to navigate any type of short- or long-term emergency situation with ease.
The first thing you want to teach your family to always be sure of is that they have taking care of their own personal hygiene. As we saw during the pandemic, washing your hands and not touching your face can be one of the strongest solution in keeping you free from illnesses.
The problem with this is that you may not have access to clean water at all times. In that case, you want to make sure that you have some way to sanitize your hands. You might have to bathe less often, but you still need to keep your skin clean, especially if you’re in a situation where you might have an open cut.
If you’re in a scenario where you are hunkered down at home and the sewer system is no longer working, you might have to resort to digging a trench latrine if you do not have access to some sort of composting toilet or other gear.
You don’t want waste from your kitchen or living area to accumulate on your property. You want to take that elsewhere away from home so that it doesn’t break down and ruin your water or attract all different types of pests.
When it comes to food safety, you have to think of it the same way you do today, keeping your food either cold for storage or making sure it reaches a hot enough temperature for consumption. You also need to make sure you keep your surfaces clean whenever you are preparing and storing food for your family.
We already talked about digging a latrine, and this can be a pit that you dig into the ground. But you have to know how to manage that as well. This area needs to be kept clean and the waste has to be covered every time the latrine has been used so that you aren’t attracting flies and other pests.
If you’ve gotten in a situation where clean drinking water is limited, you’ll want to do your best to bathe, wash dishes and clothing in a natural, running water source like a river or stream.
You can always take this water and boil it to use for hygienic purposes and sanitation options. You can also create your own soap or use plants like soapwort or Yucca that will help you lather up and stay clean.
For oral hygiene, if you don’t have access to a toothbrush and toothpaste, you can always use sticks that you can chew on, where you can fray the end to clean your teeth as good as possible, but make sure that you are choosing a non-toxic twig and that the edges aren’t to sharply splintered to avoid poking holes in your gum.
Useful Gadgets and Gear You May Need For Hygiene and Sanitation
There are different types of items and gear that you can invest in ahead of time so that whether you are at home or bugging out, you’ll have the sanitation and hygiene products you need to stay safe, comfortable and healthy.
You can invest in a portable toilet. If you are in a long-term survival situation you should build an outhouse. Portable toilets are great for bugging out because they are compact and lightweight.
You can also carry waste disposal bags that you can put human waste in as well as other items from your campsite. These days are even certain bags available with chemicals inside that can help break down the waste for you.
Because access to clean water is so important, you may want to invest in a water purification system. There are different small and large ones that can support your entire property, depending on your budget.
You also want to have plenty of hand sanitizer that you can carry with you and have at home. We saw how important this was during the recent pandemic, and in a long term survival event when sanitation and hygiene can mean the difference between health and sickness, it will be even more vital.
Make sure you have other items on hand that will help with hygiene. These include things like disposable gloves, plenty of hand soap and bleach, personal hygiene items like deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste and more.
Feminine hygiene is a whole subject by itself. You need to have sufficient supplies on hand to get you through a short-term emergency or supply problem. In addition, you need to plan for and stock up for a longer emergency as well. This includes enough waste bags and a way to dispose of the used products in a safe and hygienic way. If you are in a bush and wilderness scenario you need to ensure the waste is buried so not to attract larger predators to your site.
Creating a Sanitation and Hygiene Plan for Survival
Don’t just gain awareness and buy supplies for sanitation and hygiene. Make a plan for how you’ll handle things the minute it breaks down and you’re on your own. Go through your everyday life and look at all of the things you rely on to stay clean, such as a dishwasher, washer and dryer, bath, sink and garbage disposal.
Think of how you’ll handle it if they’re not working and there are no professionals to come fix things for you. Create a routine and schedule for removing waste, cleaning surfaces, bathing and more.
Invest in the products you know you’ll want to use to help keep your living space clean, and stock up on these for long-term events. Have a backup plan, too – such as making your own soap and cleaning materials whenever your existing ready-made supply runs out.
You also have to make sure you’re not the only one aware of how this works. It’s important that every member of your family understands the dire consequences associated with bad hygiene habits or poor sanitation measures.
If you do get caught in an event where you have to handle your own sanitation, monitor the effectiveness of what you’re doing and make tweaks if you see problems arising.
So now you know about essential hygiene and sanitation habits and products for survival it is time to check out our next chapter in our series – Part 27: How to Pick a Farm Animal to Start Raising for Survival
If you’ve missed the previous installment you can check it out here: Part 25 – How to Begin Learning Proper Foraging Techniques