Plastic Buckets for Storage

[Skysoldier]

I buy chlorine for my pool in 50# plastic buckets. I've never measured but my guess is they would hold 6 or 7 gallons of water (just to illustrate the size). There is no odor at all until I open the lid, which is a screw on type. I'm curious if they would be suitable for packaged food storage, providing they were cleaned well and the air purged out (possibly with CO2). Like I said, they seal well enough that there is no chlorine odor until I open the lid. So far, I have about half a dozen. Any thoughts?

[Teg]

If they were cleaned out as you described, I think they would be fine for packaged food, if you wanted to err on the side of safety you could put a liner in to further protect your items.

[NCLee]

Check the list of ingredients to see if anything else besides chlorine was in the buckets. I'm not familiar with chlorine for pools, so I don't know what's involved. However, with many products, after the main ingredient there can be a host of additives - dyes, perfumes, preservatives, anti-caking ingredients, etc.

Depending on the "recipe" that was in the bucket originally, even lining with plastic may not be enough. Plastic sheeting and bags tends to breath to some extent.

By way of example, think about how badly tomato sauce stains plastic food storage containers. Regular dishwashing doesn't remove that stain. The components of the stain are still in the plastic. However, the stain can be removed from the container. So, the potential exists for something else stored in the container to leach out the stain.

Get the list of ingredients, then google them to see if there's anything hazardous that you may not be able to remove with simple washing and airing out.

This isn't to say that you can't use those containers, as they could be ideal, especially if they are food grade plastic and you can indeed remove all traces of the previous contents.

http://waltonfeed.com/old/self/upack/buckets.html

Hope this helps.

Lee

[Teg]

True, I was thinking of it as just chlorine but some additive could make it more toxic.

[Curbie]

http://waltonfeed.com/old/self/upack/buckets.html

Nice link.

Thanks,

Curbie

[RueTheDay]

I'd be careful. Some pool chemicals can be really nasty even in small amounts.

[Tuckahoe]

I did some reading somewhere over the years about making a bug out supply kit made of several poly buckets. This would be a great project to re-hash. The best I remember there were five buckets of survival gear and included everything you would need in an emergency including a handgun and ammunition.

[snuffy]

Word of caution, be careful what you use to clean the buckets the chlorine came in.
Chlorine can be very dangerous if mixed with the wrong stuff. I'm not a chemist but my bil
almost killed himself with bleach and ammonia which produce chlorine gas.
Maybe you could use mrylar bags sucessfully.

Snuffy