Reep Green Solutions is encouraging everyone not to let April showers or summer storms go to waste. To help local residents conserve water and support a good cause, they are hosting a rain barrel sale in partnership with RainBarrel.ca, a non-profit that repurposes food-grade containers into rain barrels.
The sale started in May and pre-orders end tomorrow (June 5). However, Reep will accept orders until the pickup date (June 13). The pickup is from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the WALES Group Building at 14 Braun St., Kitchener.
Money raised will go towards supporting the Working Adults Learning Empowering Skills (WALES) new community garden at Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region and expanding the programs offered by Rain Smarts Neighbourhoods, including free in-person landscape consultations and custom community events in neighbourhoods located within priority watersheds.
“The rain barrel sale itself is a part of a larger program called Rain Smart Neighbourhoods that we run at Reep Green Solutions,” said Taylor Ross, the organization’s stormwater and healthy landscapes programs manager.
“Rain Smart Neighbourhoods has been running since 2021 in partnership with the City of Kitchener.”
The goal of that program is to help residents create beautiful, healthy yards that significantly reduce flooding risks and improve water quality. In creating healthy yards, rain barrels play an essential role. For homeowners, they help reduce the risk of stream bank erosion and residential basement flooding by capturing and storing rooftop runoff.
Using water from rain barrels for your lawn and garden also means you rely less on municipal treated water, which conserves water and saves money.
“They also help reduce the load that we have on our municipal stormwater system,” said Ross.
“So, during heavy rain events that we’re seeing more of due to climate change, all that rainwater is kind of falling down on our roof, and then quickly sent away into our stormwater systems.”
Standard barrels capture the initial surge of rainwater during a storm, preventing storm sewers from reaching capacity all at once.
According to Ross, the great thing about rain barrels is that “anyone who basically has a roof and a downspout could definitely benefit from a rain barrel.”
“I’m getting my landlord to install one, telling him about the different benefits as well. But homeowners, if you have space for it, can also get multiple rain barrels, which is an option, or there are larger [containers] called cisterns to capture more stormwater.”
Residents can visit www.RainBarrel.ca/reepgreen to purchase barrels in support of the fundraiser. The rain barrels all come equipped with a leaf and mosquito filter basket, a spigot, an overflow adaptor, and an overflow hose.
“They have quite a few different types of rain barrels. You can get some with diverters, some with specific different extra parts, and you can also order individual parts themselves too. So, if you have an existing rain barrel and you want to kind of upgrade your system, they have different materials for that as well,” said Ross.
