BWCA 5 Gallon Bucket Sink Boundary Waters Listening Point - General Discussion
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03/06/2021 08:42AM  
Car Campers, Base Campers and Scouters:

Our scout troop hopes to be back in our regular routine for camping this summer. We've always struggled with the scouts on hand hygiene. With the pandemic top of mind we've been looking for a solution.

What do you use for car camping or scout camping?

Thoughts on this concept?

Bucket Sink Video

We are thinking of using a more robust foot pump:

Foot Pump

Worth bringing along for BWCA base camping?
 
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brp
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03/06/2021 08:59AM  
That seems pretty bulky and complicated to carry. Is there a reason that simple hand sanitizer would not work? It would be so much smaller, lighter, and require no set-up.

If you need some type of water based sink, I would use a water bladder that you can fill easily in the lake and hang from a low tree branch, gravity fed. The bladder would roll down to the size of spray paint can and be much lighter. Use biodegradable soap in the bladder away from the water's edge.

The bladder type water filters are also nice for bigger groups, they provide a lot of clean water for one trip to the water's edge. Also nice to keep kids away from the water when it is dark, or they could drop filter components into the water.

Here is a suggestion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJoE0TaPF34
 
03/06/2021 12:25PM  
I just take hand sanitizer and always have some in my pocket as well as other places, like water, kitchen, bathroom.

Hand sanitizer was my first thought like brp.
 
salukiguy
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03/06/2021 12:45PM  
How about hanging a solar shower from a tree branch and use it for hand washing.
 
03/06/2021 01:32PM  
salukiguy: "How about hanging a solar shower from a tree branch and use it for hand washing."
+1 or any type of collapsible water bag.
 
03/06/2021 01:58PM  
If the point of the hand washing station is to sanitize your hands then the key here is soap. Hand sanitizer, as other have stated, would be better for two reasons: 1. Lighter and more compact, 2. No soap required to sanitize your hands.

Soaps (and for that matter, surfactants in general) are not good for aquatic organisms, hence the reason they ask you to use as little as possible and to dump soapy water far from the lake and other waters. Thus, I use little to no soap in the BWCA/Q, maybe a couple drops of campsuds for dinner cleanup and that’s it. I always keep hand sanitizer with the TP/wipes in a ziploc bag.
 
RedLakePaddler
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03/06/2021 03:22PM  
We used a bleach jug with a small hole it. We had a golf tee tied to it and a bar of soap in a nylon stocking. The golf tee was used to plug the hole. It was usually hanging from a tree near the out house. It was simple and worked good. It was an attempt to reduce the cases of Boy Scout flu that seem to follow some camping trips. Now to get boys to wash their hand is another thing and adults weren’t much better.
 
03/06/2021 06:43PM  
RedLakePaddler: "We used a bleach jug with a small hole it. We had a golf tee tied to it and a bar of soap in a nylon stocking. The golf tee was used to plug the hole. It was usually hanging from a tree near the out house. It was simple and worked good. It was an attempt to reduce the cases of Boy Scout flu that seem to follow some camping trips. Now to get boys to wash their hand is another thing and adults weren’t much better."


Just what I was going to suggest. Learned this method when my girls were in the Girl Scouts. We used a cleaned out milk jug and a pointed stick into the jug and the bar of soap in a nylon. After the trip recycle the jug and hang on to the soap-in stocking for the next trip. We always hung this setup in full view of the campsite and the scouts were self policing on hand washing.
 
03/08/2021 03:07PM  
Maybe you could bring this along while car camping if you like tinkering with a pump and bucket sink. But with all due respect, a contraption like that has no business being portaged into the wilderness. Even base camping. A few comforts are okay, but I feel that bringing a 5 gallon bucket and foot pump for a sink into the wilderness is defeating the whole purpose and spirit of a BWCAW trip. A small bottle of hand sanitizer for each Scout will work just fine. Just my 2¢
 
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