Green Options

Rainharvest Systems and Five Seasons Brewing teamed up to create a microbrew made from 100% on-site captured rainwater!

Until this year, there were three Western states where it was illegal to have a rain barrel in your back yard: Washington, Utah, and Colorado. A change to local laws means we can scratch the latter off the list!

[Photo by Becky Striepe]

So your garden’s all planted, and your rows are marked. Maybe you’ve got some upside-down tomatoes going, and your compost bin is chugging right along. You’ve probably got quite a few thirsty plants to take care of!

Rainwater collection is controversial in certain parts of the U.S.. If rainwater harvesting is allowed in your area, though, it’s a great way to water your garden without drawing from the municipal water supply!

Store bought rain barrels can run you upwards of $100. Instead of dropping a ton of cash at the garden center, though, you can make your very own! Some restaurants will even give you their used 55 gallon food grade containers for free, which are perfect for making a rain barrel. Ask around…you might just be surprised!

Here’s a great video from HGTV on how to build your own rain barrel, complete with a spigot:

We are seeing more climate conscious design in architecture: In this case; the rain screen.

A skin over the house is designed to manage and harvest occasional heavy precipitation, to provide protection from premature decay from moisture intrusion.

Sometimes the solution to a complicated problem arrives in a simple form, and that’s the case with Hydro International’s Hydro Stormbloc system.  The Stormbloc modules look like nothing more than oversized milk crates but they could help some communities finally resolve chronic stormwater flooding problems that have bedeviled them for years, and harvest rainwater for recycling, to boot.

Earth Day provides us with an opportunity to both reflect and act on our desire to use the planet’s resources in a sustainable manner. As we’ve noted in numerous posts, water may be the one resource we should focus on more, individually and collectively. No doubt, many of you have water-saving activities planned; a few of you may already be at work installing low-flow shower heads, faucet aerators, or even rain barrels.

Rainwater harvesting makes a lot of sense: the initial investment can be quite low (especially if you do it yourself), and your plants love rain water.  Unfortunately, as Rachelle Carson Begley once noted, an awful lot of commercially-available rain barrels are, well, ugly.

A rain barrel or two may seem like the perfect solution for watering the garden without waste and without adding to your water bill. Before you build your rainwater harvesting system, though, you might want to make sure that it’s legal to do so. There are three states that say the water that falls from the sky belongs to them, not to just anyone.