2011-03-14

Rain barrels schmain barrels

Someone else has cottoned to the fact that rain barrels are a gyp. Though I've not previously heard of Owen Dell, he seems to be a well-respected enviro-writer who is "master of the craft: Landscape architect, educator, and author". Thanks to Emily Green (previous link) I became aware of some of his recent writing where he calls bullshit on the cult of the rain barrel, using the generally-higher-rainfall-than-Los Angeles area of Santa Barbara as his point of reference.

Of course my reader already knows that rain barrels don't get the job done due to my insightful series of articles on the cult of the rain barrel.

Go and read Owen's blog and skip to the part where he writes rain barrel suppliers for more information:

Hello,

I have a 7,500 square foot lot, and I use about 140,000 gallons of water per year for landscape irrigation. A single 60-gallon rain barrel will supply 0.00043 of my annual water needs, making it necessary for me to have 2,333 barrels to meet those needs. They will fill almost a quarter of an acre of land if placed side-by-side. My lot is only about .17 acres, and the house and garden take it all up. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you.


The responses are illuminating.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for linking. We've all been horribly polite about these contraptions. And yes, they do have some teaching value, but they're also butt ugly and excellent mosquito hotels.

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