Note to Self on Emergency Survival.

The bleach was for a trick I picked up in China. In remote areas there you can’t get bottled water. Even the locals stick to tea, which they boil for 15 minutes. After a while, I got tired of brushing my teeth with tea, and I learned that two drops of bleach in a liter of water makes it potable. If you put a slice of lemon or lime in it, it doesn’t taste like a city pool. Now when I travel in developing countries, I always pack a vial of bleach. (This also works for bathing—one teaspoon in a gallon of water.) - from a 2005 article by Richard Rhodes, on how he coped in New Orleans during Katrina.

Good to know.