Small steps matter on the road to water sustainability

Reducing the consumption of drinking water for tasks that don’t require potable water—such as watering your garden—is an important element for sustainability. 

This is true even in places where water is relatively abundant, such as River Rouge, MI, which receives precipitation on an average of 126 days per year. This is important, because less drinking water on your flower beds lowers the amount of water that is extracted, cleaned, and transported. This, in turn, lowers the costs and energy consumption associated with those activities. 

On April 22nd, the Carmeuse River Rouge Operation took a step on the road to water sustainability by installing a rain barrel to capture rainfall and repurpose it for watering the facility’s flora. 

“In our sustainability efforts, we wanted to utilize rainfall as a green source to help maintain landscaping at our facility,” said Christy Burt, River Rouge’s green-thumbed plant generalist, who installed the rain barrel as the operation’s Earth Day project. The rainwater is already being used to keep River Rouge’s roses blooming. 

Christy continued, “The barrel is located at the front of the facility, an ideal location to catch any wet weather, and within easy reach of the greenery that brightens up our working environment.”

In addition to collecting water for use in the garden, rain barrels also reduce runoff—rainwater that, instead of soaking into the ground, hits impervious surfaces and drains into nearby streams and rivers. This runoff often picks up pollutants from the sidewalks, roads and parking lots along which it flows. These pollutants then end up in local waterways where they can harm local wildlife and degrade water quality. 

Pictured in the photograph is the rain barrel system implemented by Christy Burt outside of the River Rouge office.