WEBVTT - Can water go bad?

0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:06.120
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from HowStuffWorks dot com where smart Happens. Hi.

0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:10.560
<v Speaker 1>I'm Marshall Brain with today's question, can water go bad?

0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:15.040
<v Speaker 1>Many people store water for emergencies like hurricanes and power failures.

0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.760
<v Speaker 1>This is especially true in rural areas where drinking water

0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.759
<v Speaker 1>comes from private wells. These wells are useless unless there's

0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.400
<v Speaker 1>power to run the pump. It turns out that there

0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.040
<v Speaker 1>are two ways for water to go bad. You can

0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.000
<v Speaker 1>easily demonstrate the first way by filling a bucket with

0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.479
<v Speaker 1>tapwater and leaving it out on the back porch for

0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.640
<v Speaker 1>several days. After about a week, you'll find that the

0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.519
<v Speaker 1>water in the bucket contains mosquito larvae, algae, and various

0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.040
<v Speaker 1>other life forms, none of which you would want to

0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:47.199
<v Speaker 1>be drinking. From this experiment, you can decide that storing

0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.519
<v Speaker 1>water in an open container is a bad idea unless

0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:52.680
<v Speaker 1>you have a plan to purify the water when you

0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.160
<v Speaker 1>need to drink it. Storing water to close container works

0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.880
<v Speaker 1>no better if that water that you place in the

0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.080
<v Speaker 1>container is contained eminated in some way. You need to

0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.319
<v Speaker 1>put pure water in a clean container and then process

0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.759
<v Speaker 1>it in some way to eliminate bacterial contamination. You can

0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.440
<v Speaker 1>process the water with heat, just like you do with canning,

0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.520
<v Speaker 1>or you can use a chemical like chlorine or iodine.

0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.840
<v Speaker 1>The second wave for water to become unfit for drinking

0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.039
<v Speaker 1>is for something from the container to leach out into

0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.720
<v Speaker 1>the water. As an extreme example, imagine what would happen

0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.240
<v Speaker 1>if you were to store water in a lead container.

0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.480
<v Speaker 1>Lead would leach out into the water and make it poisonous.

0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.360
<v Speaker 1>The container you use needs to be made from a

0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.759
<v Speaker 1>food grade material in order to avoid leaching problems. Glass,

0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:43.160
<v Speaker 1>stainless steel, and some plastics are food gray. Do you

0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.520
<v Speaker 1>have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so,

0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.440
<v Speaker 1>please send me an email at podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.

0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:52.960
<v Speaker 1>For more on this and thousands of other topics, go

0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.600
<v Speaker 1>to HowStuffWorks dot com.