Depending on how adventurous you like your camping trip to be, running out of clean water can be a very real problem. If this happens, you may be tempted to drunk some clean looking water from a river, or nearby brooke. However, this is often no more than a quick way to soiling your cargo pants.

All you need to filter clean water from grimy stuff is a couple of jars and a bit of cloth. Just fill jar one with dirty water and place the empty jar two next to it. Put a long, thin bit of cloth into the dirty water, draping the other end into the clean, empty jar.

After a short while, thanks to the magic of science, the clean water will travel up the cloth and into the empty jar, leaving the mud and snot of jar one behind.  It’s not perfect, but it’s better that the alternative.