These reflective Mylar blankets and bivy sacks usually only cost a few dollars, which make them a great investment considering that the lives they can save are priceless. But besides being a blanket to shelter us from the elements, what other tricks can the simple space blanket pull off?

Rain Catch
The waterproof nature of the plastic blanket makes it an ideal rain harvester. All you have to do is line a hole and wait for the skies to open up. But this isn’t the strongest material on earth, and pin holes through the plastic are inevitable, which brings us to one more good reason to carry duct tape.

Signal
The signal qualities of the blanket depend on its coloring. Some brands of space blanket have a silver side and an orange side, like the ones from Adventure Medical Kits. This gives you options when placing the blanket out on the ground as a signal panel. The orange would be better contrast against snow, and the silver would be stark against a dark background. Whichever colors you have on your space blanket, they all work when you hoist the blanket on a pole as a signal flag. The material can also be cut into strips and hung on branches as trail markers.