Cleaning a drum for water.

[abock33]

I have the opportunity to get a 275gal container from my work. I would like to use it to store water. Right now it it being used to store antifreeze. Would you use it and how would you clean it out?

[DarrellM5]

What material is the container made of? Is it something that would absorb the antifreeze?

[FN1910]

If you are talking of storing drinking water in it I would not. When I was having to test transformers for PCB's I learned that one drop of PCB in that 225 gallon drum would make it unacceptable. I don't know the specifics of anti-freeze but it would be hard to ever clean that drum to use for drinking water. However I doubt that it would actually hurt you but why take the chance.

[Glock Fan]

Originally Posted by abock33

I have the opportunity to get a 275gal container from my work. I would like to use it to store water. Right now it it being used to store antifreeze. Would you use it and how would you clean it out?

I would highly advise against it. You could use the drum to store "non-potable" water. Be sure to clearly mark it as such. Any container used for storing food or water for human consumption should be made of materials that are FDA approved. There are many options out there. A few local restaurants sell plastic drums that contained vinegar, cooking oil or other "food stuffs". I've purchased many of these drums and have about a half dozen of them currenly full of water that I will use as my "emergency drinking water". I also have a healthy supply of plain liquid bleach that will be used to purify the water as needed.

The 275 gal container would be great to store water to be used for sanitation (bathing or washing hands after using the toilet). The container can be cleaned up for this purpose using a lot of water and scrubbing thoroughly with an industrial cleaner such as "Simple Green". I have 2 "non-potable" water drums that are used for this purpose.



gf

[Cooter]

I'm not a chemical expert, but I would not use any container for drinking water that had antifreeze in it. Ever use an old fruit juice jug for water? You can still smell the juice for long after it's been washed. I wouldn't risk it with a deadly poison.

[abock33]

Those were my thoughts. We go through a container every 2 weeks and the company has to pay to get rid of them. I was going to grab one for my self if I was positive I could get it sterile. I'll see if I can find out the material, maybe I could use it for something else. Thx for the help.

[Onlinedad]

Usually its a triple rinse process that the container have to go through before they can be used again. But, they will not ever be used for food grade contents.

You could still use one, or more, of those containers to collect rainwater. That way you can collect the water for free, and its probably good enough (after being rinsed) to use to water your plants, or for cleaning up, as mentioned before.

[CathyInBlue]

For rainwater, I'd check the numbers on quantities of antifreeze that can be consumed by a human being or other anmal before there are any detectable (not detrimental, but simply detectable) effects on health, and then clean them sufficiently to insure that those amounts/concentrations can never possibly build up in anyone who eats the foods grown from them, perhaps even going so far as to apply a coating of a plastic sealer inside the barrel.

But I adhere to the basic rule of water safety, if the container has ever held anything not beneficial to human biology, DO NOT DRINK FROM IT. If it was only ever used to freight salsa or orange juice or chicken broth, fine, but not motor oil or anti-freeze or hydraulic fluid.

I'd say the best thing you guys could do with them is to punch holes around the periphery right above the base, weld on some artisticly bent rebar for legs to keep the base up off the ground, and sell them as garbage burning barrels.

Absent that, just drain them, pop the bottoms off, tip the barrels on side, squash the drum to half its original diameter, toss the bottom inside, finish squashing it flat as a sheet of paper and start stacking them up out back. Run a lottery for guesses as to how high the stack can get before it tips over. The winner gets the lottery proceeds plus the scrap value of the flattened barrels when they're taken to the scrap yard.

[old dude]

steam cleaning would help but i still wouldnt drink out of it.

[toreskha]

Originally Posted by abock33

Those were my thoughts. We go through a container every 2 weeks and the company has to pay to get rid of them. I was going to grab one for my self if I was positive I could get it sterile. I'll see if I can find out the material, maybe I could use it for something else. Thx for the help.

Put a drum liner inside and you might be able to use it for more stuff.

Be careful though. Even if you plan to just store toilet flushing water in it, everyone might not realize its chemical history. Someone might stupidly take a drink thinking it's clean water.