Bandanas aren’t just for hip, young, fashionistas any more.
There are many uses for a bandana in your preparedness gear.
- Head covering to protect from sun
- Cooling rag – get it wet and wrap around head or neck
- Dust Mask – wrap around face to help protect from debris
- First Aid – use to pack a wound, wrap an ankle, splint a broken bone
- Water purification – use to filter particulates from water (though it will not filter parasites or poisons, only debris)
- Foraging – can use to hold food or use as a plate
- Signal – use to signal or as a trail marker
- Fire Starter- use pieces as tinder
There are even bandanas you can purchase that have survival information printed on them!
Survival information bandana
assortment of military style bandanas
I want to suggest the Bandanas by the Dozen packs from Amazon as they are less than $1each, but most the ones we bought were cheap, polyester and not real bandana material. You’d be better paying just a bit more for real cotton bandanas.
Here’s a great graphic to keep track of on what you can use it for:
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I pack several bandanas especially when hiking. 1 is bright orange which can be used for visibility purposes. 1 is blue which I use to filter water only, nothing else. 1 is camouflaged which I use in every way you can think of. If you put a bandana over a water bottle it will filter out large sediment but as you said not bacteria.
The trick to filtering out bacteria is by using charcoal, which is easy enough to make if you have fire. You can load your bandana with charcoal and pound the charcoal in to fine powder and small pieces which will filter out a considerable amount of bacteria.
I wouldn’t guarantee this to be as effective as a commercially made filter but if I had no way to boil water and had fire, I would opt for this before risking my health by drinking questionable water. I have tried this and the murky water I poured over the charcoal came out clear. I didn’t have a way to test the water for bacteria but it did work to some degree. The same filter can be used with a coffee can by punching a hole in the bottom and filling the can with layers of charcoal and sand.