New Water Tank

This week we set up our new 1000 gallon tank. That totals 2400 gallons, and will be more than sufficient to last us until next year's rains, by which time we will hopefully have built our 7000 gallon ferro-cement tank.

We made it on 1400 gallons from the rains of last summer until this June (we do usually get a little rain in winter, but not this past year), but only just. We were two days away from having to haul water. Admittedly we weren't using our own water for construction, which we brought in from the village.

This is more storage than we have ever had before, and we love it. The only drawback is that we had a ton of rain this weekend, which all overflowed onto the ground. And since we installed the tank on Tuesday, we have had little more than a drizzle!! Oh well, it'll come.

More Photos

Reusing plastic bottles

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We have a new Instructable entered into a Plastic Bottle Reuse contest:
Instructables

In the not too distant past, you would buy milk, sodas, etc. in glass bottles which you would return to the store to be sterilized and used again. Now, with our disposable culture, plastic bottles have replaced this system and have consequently become one of the many banes of the landfills. We need to rectify this wasteful and eco-nomically expensive practice.

The current popular solution to the problem is recycling. However, recycling requires additional energy to process the material into something usable, not to mention the fact that the process itself can have harmful side effects. So a better solution, if you can't avoid the disposable containers altogether, is to reuse them. This requires no added infrastructure costs and concerns. In fact, if you are reusing junk, you are helping to make the initial energy that went into the production of that material last longer and go farther. It’s not just about saving money, but more importantly, integrating your lifestyle with what is available for the least amount of cost, be it environmental or financial.

That said, we have a new article on the site, offering some quick and easy ideas on how to reuse plastic bottles around the homestead.