There’s an old saying that every man needs to have five kinds of people in his life – a forgiving priest, an understanding mistress, a loving wife, a friendly banker, and a good doctor.
I was doing a little business the other day and it occurred to me that my circle of acquaintances encapsulates the survivalist version of that…cops, gun dealers, gold/silver dealers, a couple medical professionals, and a few other ‘useful’ people. It was brought home to me when I was given this:
See, one of the people I know runs a business where he resupplies and maintains emergency equipment for businesses. One of his tasks is to pull expired components from the first aid kits in the vehicles of a large regional company. What happens to those expired items? Well, they get thrown in a big box and whoever wants ’em can have ’em. Since bandaids and gauze pads dont really ‘go bad’ I took ’em for supplying some tertiary-level first aid kits.
But….it’s useful to know people who are in such businesses. I still need to establish relationships with a good realtor, and a doctor. But…I’ve got a pretty good grasp on a rather eclectic mix of other useful folks.
Networking, baby…………..
No, no no. You see that ISN’T cases of Normal Saline… no no no. It’s all expired. Those are IRRIGATION fluids, Lavage fluids, See? All legal, move along, nothing to see.
Start volunteering at a thrift store donation center.
There’s very few things I’d volunteer for and that ain’t one of them, but I see your point. I do check those places out once in a while and have gotten some decent clothes out of them.
I go thru the donations and get first pick of good stuff and stuff that for liability reasons can’t be sold. It is a good organization that I can get behind too, and I work hard for them. Sometimes the little stuff adds up, actually it always adds up. Downside is that I could never keep up with the books, I need a clone or robot.
I think what would be useful is a prepper (soft terminology) or suvivalist message board for only small geographic areas or units. Like just a town, zip code, voting precinct, that would have an underlying purpose of localizing mutual support groups. Trade and commerce could be outlying theme or purpose. But it could self evolve to information flow. Craigslist-ish without politic rambling, or someones expert advice for sale. It would be nice if some one had a specific spark plug for your generator nearby in your community without trying to find it in local business or order one in middle of week long power outage. Hhmm.
Sounds really useful, which is why it would be a really bad idea to do. You can absolutely guarantee various levels of .gov would be mining it for info of who has what, and where it is. Basically, it would be a shopping list for the .gov to play with. You don’t even want your name or address associated with anything like this.
Hi Randy!
I see the point of what you are saying, but it does have a down-side.
Such detailed info about a small area could make you a target for those who might want to rob you.
I know that you would almost welcome “discouraging” them, but it’s better to keep a low profile…
All the best!
Nice. Kept dry and in a clean environment that stuff never really goes bad.
BTW, the good bandaids that are usually stocked in industrial firstaid kits are good for a looonng time. I’m using some I got back in the late 90’s. I stored them in sealed baggies, with the air pressed out before zipping closed. The paper wrappers don’t peel open, they have to be torn open now, but the bandages stick as well as new, maybe better.
I recently found some in my desk that I didn’t bag, and those went bad. No sticky, and some of the paper wrappers fell apart.
The only problem I’ve encountered is various types of containers of Betadine don’t stay sealed. I have lost a couple of bottles, big and tiny, and some packages of scrubbies with it included. The scrubbies were bagged, but it didn’t seem to help. Not sure what is going on. Might be degrading plastics in some fashion.
I would not vacuum pack any bandages with an adhesive. I suspect that this might cause some outgassing of volatiles, adversely affecting the stickability, and possibly coating the bandage surface with substances you don’t want in an open wound.
I haven’t tried this, but I have worked with industrial vacuum systems, and weird things happen.
Be careful of doing this with nitrogen atmospheres, and oxygen removing setups. Some rubber materials will disintegrate under these conditions. O-rings in gun cases are normally buna-N. Turns to powder in this situation.
I’ve got a bunch of bandaid type bandages made by other companies and they definitely ‘aged out’. They seem sticky enough but an hour later are peeled. Like eliminating duracel batteries from my stuff, I’m eliminating all the bandaids that are NOT bandaid brand (r).
Cloth tape ages out too as it becomes powdery and hard to peel off the roll.
There are LOTS of good and weird things available out there. Respirator cartridges in sealed bags, full face respirators, safety harnesses in bags, medical supplies,rescue equipment, all with expiry dates but all good long past that time.
My local Habitat for Humanity had several cases of biocide cleaners left over from storm cleanup… better to have it BEFORE hand, right? Esp. at $5/gallon. They also had commercial kitchen grade cleaner/sterilizer soap for pennies on the dollar. They usually have bags of new hotel soap bars, and shampoos too. Who knew that those expired? Awesome trade goods. Great for handing to panhandlers.
nick
Mine are Zee brand. The fabric backing type bandaids.
The Zee brand stuff is generally good, but I don’t have any long term storage experience with it. I’ve bought the OSHA approved whole kits with a month left on them and used them in my shop. No employees, no OSHA.
Several of our local agencies sell MH by the pallet with a month left on it. Can’t sell it once it actually expires. It goes for good money in the auctions too.
I work in a large west coast harbor. I get tons of those as well as gauze, burn dressings and other medical supplies from a life raft service company. When they service rafts I get every medical kit from them, they’d trash them otherwise side they’ve “expired”, lol…