I think the key is to use a few drops of water or use the water you’re soaking up to activate it. Like if you took a solar shower while backpacking and wanted to dry off it would activate when you started wiping yourself dry with it which would make it easier to towel with which would increase the rate at which it activates in a positive feedback loop.
If you only consider the context of the demonstration it sucks but if you consider you might have a pot/pan that has some water on it still that you’d like to dry off before putting it into your pack it would activate from that water too right? If anything the fact that they’re so thoroughly dehydrated probably means they can pick up more water than another towel of similar size and weight.
I’m just talking here but wouldn’t you take in and take out everything when you go camping? What do you do with these towels now that they’re big after being used? If you carry them back then wouldn’t it just defeat the purpose of having a pill towel when you could just carry a regular small one?
They’re the size of a paper towel.
Tie it on outside of backpack to dry? Never used these specifically just spitballing based on experience.
Usually you’d have a bag for garbage that you can put it in. It mainly saves space to start with in your pack. You have other supplies like food and water which will be used up over the course of the hike, providing more space on the way back that wouldn’t be there at the start, so the towels expanding after use isn’t as much of a problem.
