How To Build A Rainwater Collection System In Your Backyard

Published October 6, 2014
Updated September 17, 2019

How to simply and cheaply build a rainwater collection system out of everyday items you already have.

Rainwater Collection System

We’re in the middle of a water crisis. Some of the worst droughts in recorded history are currently sweeping through Australia, the Americas, and Africa, turning once-productive farmland into desert and placing a growing barrier between the poor and potable water.

The United States of America leaves the world’s largest water footprint (about 400 gallons per person every day). We get it–long, hot showers are amazing. Whether you’re deep conditioning, weeping over the likelihood that you’re sterile due to all the synthetic estrogen you ingested as a child, or whatever else you do in there, you’re turning a lot of clean, potable water into wastewater, and we’re running through our clean water resources faster than the earth can replenish them.

One simple way to cut down on the amount of water you remove from aquifers and wells is by collecting rainwater instead of letting it mix with contaminated water and flow into the sewage system.

If you take a few easy steps to convert your existing gutters into a rainwater collection system, you can collect around 60 gallons of rainwater. This water isn’t potable, so treat it before you drink it. Or better yet, don’t drink this water at all and use it to water your lawn or garden. Americans are using three times the volume of Lake Mead just to water our lawns EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

There are tons of different rainwater collection systems, but this is one of the simplest and the cheapest. Here’s how to make it:

How To Make A Rainwater Collection System
Step 2 rainwater collection
Step 3 rainwater collection
Step 4 rainwater collection
How To Build A Rainwater Collection System In Your Backyard
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