Plastic Barrels are a great green product to collect and store rainwater for your garden and other outdoor uses. Collecting and Storing rainwater in rain barrels is a great way to also take the pressure of local water storages, especially in areas that are in drought.
An even better way to be greener again though, is to use recycled plastic barrels. Used plastic barrels come ready made to be easily transformed into rain barrels and in most cases it’s just a case of cleaning them out and they’re then ready to store rainwater. It is important first to check what was originally in the barrel. Some plastic barrels are used to store chemicals and it may be quite difficult to remove all traces of contaminants, so be fussy about the where you source your plastic barrels. So by recycling you’re basically cutting out the process of turning one plastic product into another plastic product and just reusing it in more or less its present form.
Recycled plastic barrels are fairly easy to source and once upon a time they were an item that was given away for free. These days though with the increased popularity of rain barrels and with recycled plastic barrels being such an obvious choice to transform into a rain barrel, used plastic barrels are now a lot harder to source for free. The good news is though, that these types of barrels can still be sourced relatively inexpensively.
To source recycled plastic barrels the internet is one of the best places to start. Just type the following keywords into your favorite search engine such as recycled plastic barrels, used plastic barrels, secondhand plastic barrels and you can also replace the word “barrels” with “drums” or “containers” and also add “55 gallon” or “200 litre” in front as well.
Also food processing plants, salvage yards and garage sales are all an option. The most important point is to know what he plastic barrel contained in its past life so you know it’s not contaminated. If unsure it’s probably best not to use it.
Once you’ve sourced your recycled plastic barrels it’s then just a case of turning them into a rain barrels. This is a relatively easy exercise and comes down to sourcing a few common items from your local hardware store.
To find out just how easy it is to turn recycled plastic barrels into rain barrels just enter you details and you can download How to Make a Rain Barrel for FREE. It shows you how to make your very own EFFICIENT rain barrel that will collect and harvest lots rainwater for your garden and outdoor needs.
It’s all about how I made my own Plastic Rain Barrels from two old discarded Plastic Barrels that cost me next to nothing to make.
