Hey Preppers meet your new best friend: Biochar

Here's why biochar just might be the most important par.t of a Survivor's Toolkit

Here’s why biochar just might be the most important par.t of a Survivor’s Toolkit

Attention all Preppers: what single item is the most valuable and versatile in a survival kit? Allow me to make the case for an item that can be made by just about anyone, anywhere: biochar (or charcoal). I am far from what you’d call a Prepper but I recently attended one of NY State’s Preparedness Training classes which got me thinking of the various ways that biochar could be of value to individuals after an emergency. Here is my top 10 list of reasons why biochar ought to be on every Preppers ‘Must Have’ list:

  1. Water Filtration – while not as high tech as some of the gadgets out there, biochar can do a pretty good job of getting toxins out of water. (If you’ve got kids and want to show them how it works, put some food coloring in a glass of water and then add a chuck of charcoal to it. By the next day the water should be clear.)
  2. First Aid – Charcoal has long been used as a means of riding the body of toxins when ingested but can also help on things like bee stings and poison ivy when used in a salve.
  3. Sanitation – let’s face it, toilets when you are roughing it can be kinda gross. Put your biochar to work and you can not only clean it up but you are making a nice fertilizer while doing so. You could even use if for kitty litter!
  4. Extended Food Storage – have some fruits and veggies that you’d like to last a bit longer? Bury them in biochar to keep them from spoiling.
  5. Fire Starter – (this is where the real difference between biochar and charcoal comes in) – this will hopefully not come as a shock to anyone, but charcoal catches fire pretty easily so you can always use it to get your fire on.
  6. Cooking Fuel – not only can you start a fire with charcoal, you could use it for the fuel to cook with if you can’t find any other dry stuff to burn.
  7. Deodorizer – Survival situations sometimes involve some stink, like if the sewage systems overflow like they did during Sandy and Irene. Use some biochar to help get rid of the smell and some of the humidity too.
  8. Cosmetics – biochar can be made in to soap, exfolient, tooth paste, heck I have even used it as a mouth waste to get rid of mouth bacteria.  And for those of you that want to  glam it up, there is always the eye liner usage.
  9. Emergency Writing tool – Once the ink runs out of your fancy pen, grab a hunk of char to jot down your inner most thoughts, or at least use it for emergency communications as I did in my fancy sign above.  (Warning it is messy and will not stand up to rain.)
  10. Perhaps best of all it’s FREE and you can make it yourself. What’s not to like about that! If you do it with the right gear (as I talked about here) you can even generate enough electricity to charge your cell phone, a fan, or a radio while you are making more biochar!

 

 

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