Banana peels contain atoms of sulfur and nitrogen, along with carboxylic acid and other compounds. Sounds complicated but basically it is a combination of elements that make the peels ideal to strain water.

Read the following to see how you can make a Banana peel water filter.

Supplies Needed to Make Banana Peel Water Filters

This doesn’t have to be complicated. You need banana peels. Oh, and water. Typically, for a scientific process I would also recommend a book or a board game because they take so long.

However, in this instance, results are seen immediately, and if you’re willing to wait 10 minutes, you’ll see about a 60% reduction in heavy metals. If you’d like to measure your progress, you can always get some heavy metals and some water test strips, available online.

How to Filter Your Water with Banana Peels

Survivopedia Banana Peel Water FilterThere are a couple of different methods that you can use, but it seems that the peels work better when they’ve been dried a bit. Here are your options after drying the peels for a few hours:

◾Cut the peels into small chunks
◾Place the peels in the food processor and make a dust or meal out of them.

Now, on to the actual process. You may place the peels or powder in a coffee filter or cheesecloth and pour the water through them. You also have to option of tossing the peels directly into the water letting it sit. Using the sieve method extracts a significant amount of the metals but letting the chunks or powder sit in the water for about 10 minutes extracts even more.

You may wondering how it works so let me give you the simple story: It comes down to ions in the water that are negatively charged. The heavy metals in that same H20 tend to be positively charged. The metals disband in the water and are attracted to the acids, which are bound to the banana peels. They stick to the peels and can be removed when you take the peels out of the water!

Simple, huh? To read more on this story please go to Survivorpedia.

Granted, it’s probably not the perfect solution but it does work on a rudimentary level and when you are desperate to purify water, in a survivalist situation, the banana peel is the best way to go!