[Deathstar 80]

Activated charcoal (or activated carbon) is far more effective for filtering water or air than powdered charcoal. It's what is used in systems that filter tap water, aquarium tanks, etc. I use it as part of the fume extraction system for my laser cutter/engraver. I have not had to buy any activated charcoal yet, but I understand that you can buy 50 lb. for just over $100 if you shop around. Smaller quantities can be pretty expensive but you can buy the stuff off of eBay.

This is definitely important to keep in mind. Do you know how they make activated charcoal?

But just to remind everyone, you don't have to use a water filter if you're taking water from a source that you're absolutely sure doesn't have chemicals in it. You can then just boil the water and save your activated charcoal for a more dire use later on. The type of water that wouldn't have any chemicals in it would be small creeks found far in the forest. I emphasize that you should look for small creeks found far into the forest because if there are houses or any other buildings nearby, then chemicals could possibly be transported through runoff or anything and contaminate your water source. Again, for some water sources, you only have to boil your water, but be sure that it doesn't have any chemicals in it.

As the water source gets larger, such as a lake or even a large creek, you might want to be more cautious about chemicals. But it could help you quite a bit if you save your activated charcoal. Such as, let's say that a drought comes and the water levels lower by quite a bit, and the small creeks that you got your water from happen to dry up. You can then go to a lake and use the activated charcoal that you've been saving and filter out any chemicals before you boil it.

And to let everyone know, I plan to talk about other countries that have experienced economic collapses in the past in my next post. I'm hoping this will help you get an idea of what to expect in this next economic collapse. If you want to know about anything else, simply send me a pm or post it here and I'll try to research it the best I can.