Are Buckets the Most Versatile Survival Tool? Here are 10 Reasons the Answer Might be YES!

buckets

The common bucket is the workhorse of your survival cache – it does a lot, does not complain and most often, you hardly even notice it is there.

But it's many uses make it indispensable in a survival situation and you should have several buckets set aside for just such an occasion; here are a few uses for the bucket.

Build a Rocket Stove – Large metal buckets are great for making rocket stoves. In case you don’t know, rocket stoves are cheap to make and incredibly efficient. They heat up food and water very quickly and run on small branches and twigs.

Build a Water Filter – A few buckets and some PVC pipe can be used to build a biosand filter. With these, the water filters through gravel, sand, and charcoal and comes out free of heavy metals, bacteria, and viruses. It only takes a few pounds of charcoal and lasts several months before you have to replace the charcoal.

Carry Water – If there is no running water, you might have the carry it from the nearest source. Buckets are the best thing for this. Even if you have a wagon or something, you’ll still need buckets. Jars and pails are usually too small. Another thought: If there is a flood, you can use large buckets to bail water.

Crush Your Trash – If garbage collection companies become unreliable or cease altogether, your trash will pile up quickly. To save space until you can properly dispose of it, use two 5-gallon buckets as a trash compacter. Simply put the trash in one bucket, then put the other bucket in the first one and push it down with your foot. This will halve the space taken up by your trash.

Fight Fire – If you don’t have a fire extinguisher, buckets are a good alternative. Use them to pour water or sand on a small fire. Obviously this won’t be enough if your whole house is ablaze, but if you keep a couple buckets near your grill and campfire, you can stop fires before they get too big.

Grow Food – People have been known to grow entire gardens in 5-gallon buckets. To make this even easier, you can build several Alaska Grow Buckets and connect them to a water reservoir that only needs to be refilled every week or two.

Harvest Rainwater – Put buckets at the bottom of your gutters and use the water to wash clothes or water your garden. You might be able to drink this water provided your roof isn’t too dirty and you filter the water.

Make a Toilet – Pour a few scoops of kitty litter into a 10 gallon trash bag and put it in a bucket, then sit down and do your business. The only problem is that you can’t exactly sit on a lidless bucket, and it’s difficult for some people to squat over one.

Store Dry Supplies – If you have supplies that need to stay dry (paper towels, toilet paper, kindling, fire starters, tinder, etc.) but you want to store them in the garage or attic or somewhere they could get wet, just seal them in air-tight buckets to keep out rainwater and humidity.

Store Water – A pallet of 5 gallon buckets (3 wide and stacked 3 high) full of drinking water would last the average family at least a month and wouldn’t take up much space. Just be sure to put the pallet on a concrete floor and make sure they are food grade buckets.

These are just a few uses for the bucket. Other uses include storing food and dry goods, collect tree sap, using them as nesting boxes for chickens, setting up a shower, holding bait and as a live well.

The list is almost endless.

To learn more about how to use buckets, check out Urban Survival Site and if you have ideas for uses for buckets, don't forget to mention them below.


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