The Best Containers for Water

While many people depend on their household water supply for day-to-day use, it's never a bad idea to have an emergency supply of drinking water on hand. In order for your supply of drinking water to remain safe and untainted, it's important to use only the best containers for storage. However, even an inexpensive container can be a good container to use in this circumstance.

Recycled Containers

• It is perfectly acceptable to re-use containers to store water. A number of food-grade plastic containers that were used to store other things can be used to store water. Two-liter soda bottles are good candidates, as are bottles used for tea or bottled water. It's important that the containers you use have screw on tops that are air tight, and that the containers weren't used to hold milk or other protein-rich substances--residual protein may lead to a growth of bacteria.

New Containers

• Most grocery stores sell empty jugs and bottles suitable for storing water. Since these are new containers, you don't have to worry about whether or not sugars or proteins of a previous liquid are going to affect your water in harmful ways. Make sure these containers are labeled as food-grade plastic or glass.

Large Storage

• To store larger amounts of water it's important to have the proper containers. These should be seal-able, plastic barrels, roughly the size of kegs. Larger containers are the size of rain barrels. These containers should be purchased new, clean and ready to be filled. Stored somewhere cool and away from the sun (such as a basement) and filled with water, these barrels will more than serve their purpose. As with the other, smaller containers it's important that these barrels are made of food-grade plastic with air-tight lids.