Rain Barrels

I was at my friends' house this past weekend making jam from fresh picked organic strawberries. When we were finished, we sat and were chatting for a bit. Then the rain came out of nowhere and it was coming down really hard. Ed pointed out that his rain barrel was overflowing. Rain barrels - so awesome. Every household should have at least one of these. Ed pointed out that he uses the water collected whenever it gets really hot and there are bans on watering the lawn and garden. So perfect.

I have heard of really green homes that collect rain water in huge underground tanks and use it for toilets and even that have their own filtration/cleaning system so that the water is drinkable making them completely independent when it comes to water. That's pretty awesome.

Collecting rain water does double duty of saving water required from the city (a big part of the energy used by the city is dedicated to purifying our drinking water - and then people are spending hundreds of dollars to buy bottled water) and preventing it from running off into drains and rivers causing unnecessary erosion. Because our cities are over-paved, rain water does not get absorbed into the ground the way it is supposed to. It runs into our poorly planned sewers and causes flooding in our lakes and streams. That's bad. Especially in all those houses where the downspout is directed into the sewers instead of onto lawns - or rain barrels!