Americans have access to an abundance of water much of the time; having water available at the twist of a faucet so it becomes easy to overlook the importance of water conservation. In the United States, we use approximately 205 billion gallons of water a day for household, business/industrial, and agricultural purposes. Demands on our water resources increase as our population grows, and our population is growing at alarming rates. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the Nation's population is projected to increase to 392 million by 2050 -- more than a 50 percent increase from the 1990 population size.
Thinking about the future of our nation is important and we must put conservation measures into effect now. Individuals make a HUGE difference in this effort. By practicing water conservation on a regular basis you can prevent or postpone the building of new water supply infrastructure. This can save your community millions of dollars.
Water conservation can also reduce the amount of water that needs to be processed by wastewater treatment plants connected to storm water systems, again preserving infrastructure and also reducing the amount of waste which is discharged into our nations river systems.
By utilizing rain barrels, individual citizens are helping the larger community. Debra Shore, Commissioner for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago recently spoke with me and let me know that if every citizen owned a rain barrel, it would reduce the cost of storm water maintenance by millions of dollars.
Above you see a video demonstrating how I have connected two utterly fantastic rain barrels from Clean Air Gardening. It is a good idea to put your rain barrels near your composting bins too – compost needs water regularly and combining your tools to make a more sustainable system is always a positive.
Make a difference for your community and conserve water with a rain barrel!
If you would like to purchase the rain barrels and composter shown in the above video, please go to www.cleanairgardening.com.
Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com
I enjoyed the video! Would have never thought of dual rain barrels! Thanks for the new idea!
Posted by: Jennifer (4bratz2luv) | August 05, 2009 at 06:02 PM