[pct-l] Light weight water sanitizer

[Brick Robbins]

A high concentration of chlorine with a long exposure time is required
to inactivate Giardia cysts.

Regular chlorine is generally considered ineffective, or at least far
inferior to iodine treatment, in the conditions generally experienced
by backpackers. However Giardia cysts are fairly large and easy to
filter out.

That being said, I firmly believe that the giardia threat in mountain
surface water is overstated.

HOWEVER, I think the threat from bacteria and other nasties,
especially in the SoCal desert regions is very real. Bacteria are much
smaller and harder to filter than Giardia cysts, but are much easier
to treat chemically.



On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Scott Bryce <sbryce at scottbryce.com> wrote:
> montypct wrote:
>  > Chlorine (bleach) .. 3 grams including mini dropper bottle.
>  >
>  > Cost  about 25 cents for the entire trail
>
>  OK. Does chlorine bleach kill everything it needs to kill? How much do
>  you use per quart of water? Does it need to stand before you can drink
>  it? If I prefer to filter in southern California to remove cruddies from
>  the water, at what point can I send the filter home?
>
>
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-- 
Brick Robbins
brick at fastpack.com