Let's face it, when it comes to emergency preparedness, clean drinking water is the top priority. Without fail, all natural disasters can greatly affect the water supply. My solution to this is recycled box wine bladders. These are an excellent storage container for any disaster and they collapse so you can have several dozen gallons of water in a milk crate sized container.
Here's How It Works
To begin with, I don't drink the wine. My preference would be a Merlot, however, that's irrelevant to our task at hand. All you have to do is remove the bladder from the box and then get rid of the box. If you don't care for boxed wine, all you have to do is ask around. Someone somewhere buys it. All you want is the empty. Ask friends, restaurants and the like. Tell them you're recycling the boxes and bladders and typically, they'll hand them over. They may ask how you're recycling them and you can tell them for emergency disaster if you wish, but then, they may want them for their own disaster supplies.
Place your empty wine bladder under the water faucet and gently slowly inflate it using water. Rinse the bladder out several times in this fashion. Once you're convinced that the bladder is fully and completely rinsed, you can then fill it with fresh water. Seal it off with a small clamp and allow your bladder to dry off for a day or more before you stack it to store. Once dry, stack it and store it rolled up as tightly as possible.
If the weather report tells you a disaster is on the way, you'll be all set. Be sure that you fill enough of these for each family member during any disaster. You can store these in dressers, boxes, suitcases or wherever you need them. Make sure that you have plenty in case you have to bug out.
I found this trick when I was actually looking for a way to take ice camping. It works well and I can use it for camping, disasters and my emergency preparedness bug out kits. It's the perfect solution. I recommend it to everyone and you can also freeze them so that when there is an emergency you'll have extras and you'll have them all frozen if the power is out and you need to keep some of the food you have cold. Avoid opening the refrigerator often if such an instance happens. It's important to keep food cold during an emergency so this would work very well for anyone. It's also ideal for anyone who needs to keep medication cold such as a diabetic.
There are many other ways that I recycle for green natural disaster preparedness. I always keep an eye out for things such as large candles that can offer light and some warmth. I find these at garage sales, yard sales, and thrift stores. These are inexpensive and some are even themed such as Christmas, nothing quite like adding in some Christmas cheer during a disaster. It can even be a sweet romantic touch when the power is out. Nothing better than MREs and candles for a bit of ambiance.
