water storage 55 gallon barrel

Doomsday Prepper Forums

Help Support Doomsday Prepper Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

grey03svt

New Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2013
Messages
2
Reaction score
1
Location
USA
The company I work for has a few 55 gallon dark blue plastic barrels that were used to hold windshield washer fluid. My question is will they be safe once bleached and cleaned to store and drink water out of.
 
If you look on the bottom of the container, there should be a triangle symbol with some letters in it. Here's a link that should explain more. http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-Food-Grade-Buckets

I don't know if I would store water in them. I'd have to clean them out real good and let the sun bleach them for awhile to see if there was a lasting smell. If there's a smell your water is going to taste like that smell. It's like storing foods in pickle buckets, if you aren't careful, everything tastes like pickles.
 
they are HDPE #2. so accordimg to your link they are safe for storage. Im going to clean them and see what happens. if anything ill use for rain water.
thanks for the link btw!
 
Glad I could help.

If you let them set open in sunlight for a few days, it's amazing how cleansing it is for plastics with a smell.
 
you will have to power wash them real good. with a very high pressure flow of water. then bleach it, vinegar also helps too, from what i heard, and power wash it some more. even if it seems clean enough, i would rather use it to flush the toilet, or for small baths/showers, or sponge baths. maybe clean dishes. water for plants. some other uses other than drinking water.
 
I have used laundry detergent buckets, with tight fitting lids for my flour and sugar storage for years now. It was a trial and error at first. My flour smelled rancid (like detergent) so I ended up bleaching and sun drying for days, but haven't had problems since.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top