Rainwater For Savings and Profit

When rain comes, we usually take it for granted. There are people however, who collect rainwater not only for personal use but also for profit. In fact, there are companies who sell bottled water at a premium.

The World Has A Water Problem

Before we discuss any savings or profit we can derive from rainwater, let us discuss a growing problem in the world today. The problem is the lack of supply or the total disappearance of water from many areas in the world.

According to the UN, there is water shortage in the world due to actual physical shortage of water or due to the scarcity in accessing it. One of the major cause of this problem is that the institutions responsible for ensuring the regular water supply to the people lack the resources or infrastructure to provide it.

Water scarcity already exists in every continent in the world. Since the last century, water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of human population growth. There are now many regions in the world where the limit of water supply services have been reached and even exceeded.

According to an article by World Resources Institute titled ”17 Countries, Home to One-Quarter of the World's Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress ”, water shortage is becoming common place and will soon affect everyone.

The article started out with a report saying that: the reservoirs in Chennai, India are nearly dry. Last year in 2018, the resident of Cape Town, South Africa narrowly avoid near total water shut-off. That even Rome, Italy rationed its water resources.

The Maps and Lists Tell It All

This article shows maps and lists of the world water shortage situation. If you think that you are safe just because you are in a developed country, think again. There is also a water shortage map for the United States.

It is alarming that the list shows countries in the world with high population densities like India and Pakistan among others. Just imagine the immensity of the problem when you consider billions of people without a source of water.

This is why you should seriously consider harvesting rainwater because you don’t know when your area will be hit by a water shortage. Even a few hours without water is enough to bring discomfort to anyone and can be fatal.

The Benefits Of Rainwater Over Tap Water

According to the thoughtco website: most rainwater is perfectly safe to drink. In fact, rainwater may even be cleaner than tap water. The website also stated that rainwater is only as clean as the containers it came from.

These containers can include gutters and roofs where rainwater can pass through as it is being collected. Only rainwater that has fallen directly from the sky should be collected for drinking. Therefore, it is advisable to collect only rainwater in clean open containers.

Besides this, it is also advisable to boil and filter rainwater to make it even safer to drink. This is especially so when you collect water from such places as your roof and gutter. Roof and gutters are normally full of dirt like dry leaves and bird droppings as well as other contaminants which makes drinking rainwater straight from the unsafe.

Rainwater For Cleaning

To be fair, even rainwater that came from roofs and gutters can be used without the need to filter them. One of the uses of rainwater is as a cleaning agent. You could rainwater to clean your house, the pavement and even your car.

This is true. Pure rainwater does not contain salts, minerals as well as the other contaminants found in tap water. This means that you do not have to worry about watermarks or unsightly stains.

In fact, there are car experts who recommend that you use rainwater to wash your car. If you own a carwash it is even much better. Not only will you get a cleaner car which your customers would like, but you would save on your water bills.

You can even market this to your car customers. You can show them the online articles of car experts recommending rainwater for car washing. This could be a genuine selling factor for your business and not just a gimmick.

Rainwater As A Car Coolant And…

As Car Coolant:

Still more on cars, did you know that there are car experts who also recommend the use of either distilled, demineralized or rainwater as against tap water or any other kinds of water? Distilled and demineralized water can be expensive than plain water while rainwater can be had almost free.

If you own a car, then it is advisable that you save some rainwater whenever there is rain. This means that you would have a steady supply of car coolant that not only is free but also is good for your car.

Again, you may be enterprising enough that you could start a business selling rainwater as a coolant. All you need to do is capture the rainwater which is free and then filter it to remove dirt and other impurities.

There are even businesses involved in the car business who actually market rainwater as car coolants. Of course, they do not sell rainwater in its pure form. They rather sell rainwater infused with their own chemicals and treatments to make it even better.

As Car Battery Water:

Besides being good as a car coolant, rainwater is also good for the car battery. After mineral water, rainwater is the next best preferred option for car batteries. It is even considered better than tap water.

Once again, as an enterprising individual you could market rainwater as water for car batteries. I have met car owners who care for their car so much that they do not use ordinary tap water. They buy mineral water. They could be your customer.

As Car WindShield Water:

There are now companies like Ford that have invented ways to reuse the rainwater collected by cars and use it to clean the windshield of cars. This is a good indication that rainwater is good for the glass part of cars.

You could safely clean the glass parts of your car like windshields and side mirrors using nothing more than rainwater. Of course, if it’s good for the glass part of cars it is also good for the metal and rubber parts of the car.

Rainwater For Plants

Most of the information stated in this section of the article was taken from the online newspaper The Mercury News. The title of their news article is . “For plants, rain has benefits that tap water simply can’t deliver”. Unfortunately, I was not able to directly link their article to my article.

I highly recommend that you read their entire article as it has a lot of information regarding how rain is good not only for plants but for the soil as well. Anyhow, this is a small summary of how dangerous tap water can be and how good rain could be:

Rainwater is also better for plants than tap water. Chlorine is added to tap water as disinfectant. Fluoride is also added to tap water to help people prevent cavities. However, these two ingredients can be bad for plants.

Almost all plants are susceptible to chlorine toxicity. You could usually see that a plant suffers from chlorine toxicity by the burn leaf margins it has. Indoor plants like dracaenas, pines, spider plants, yuccas and especially fruit trees are very much subject to fluoride toxicity.

The symptoms of a plant suffering fluoride toxicity would range from burnt, discolored, or spotted leaves to stressed fruit that may become diseased.

Calcium and magnesium make tap water hard which damages the pipes. This is usually remedied sometimes by the addition of sodium as a water softener. These mineral elements are much less concentrated in rainwater.

This is especially true when tap water is delivered through a sprinkler system. The white sediment people see on the leaves of their plants is calcium and magnesium sediment from irrigation water. These minerals like chlorine, is toxic to plant tissue.

This is how damaging tap water can be to plants. This is why rainwater is better for plants. You should start saving as much rainwater as you can so you can water your plants in a healthy manner. This is especially true if you eat your own plants as well. It affects your health as well.

Rainwater For Fires

There are now home owners especially those living in fire prone areas who are collecting rainwater so that they can use it to suppress fires in their homes. There are homeowners who have built a combination of rainwater storage tank attached to water sprinklers for such emergencies.

This is why I begin to wonder if maybe fire stations have begun to collect rainwater themselves for use in fire emergencies. However, I have been unsuccessful so far in finding online articles that show fire prevention groups actually storing rainwater.

It is obvious that there are not many households that store rainwater for such emergencies. Even many of those that have no access to regular water sources do not store rainwater as well.

Rainwater For Drinking

Lastly, we come to the issue of drinking rainwater. It has been already stated that rainwater is safe. Perhaps one of the best example of how rainwater can be processed into safe drinking water is by this YouTube video:

Video: Rainwater - Is It Safe To Drink? (Off Grid Rainwater Filtration)

The video shows people in a secluded area storing rainwater for use in all facets of their life. From cleaning, gardening and of course drinking. The host of the video tells us that their household only uses a small amount of bleach to disinfect the rainwater.

He also advises that you could use commercial water disinfecting products if you want to. He also shows us his rainwater filtration system which can be installed and maintained easily. The rainwater filtration systems he uses are the same for ordinary tap water.

Another thing he emphasized is that his household has been drinking rainwater for several years as well as some of the people he knows. In the comments section, there are also comments from some viewers that they too have been drinking rainwater for years.

If you read over the comment section, you would even find a comment that states that the commenter has been drinking water for decades. If this is not proof that rainwater is safe to drink using only normal water filtration systems, then I don’t know what is.

There Are Companies Who Sell Rainwater As Bottled Water

There are even companies that sell bottled rainwater for drinking purposes. The first company recorded at least in the United States to bottle rainwater for drinking purposes is the Richard’s Rainwater Company:

Video: Water: Why One Texas Company is Bottling Nature's Oldest Beverage - Staples, Episode 18

In the video, the owner of the company told us that the government regulators initially rejected his idea of bottling rainwater for human drinking. This is because he has no engineering degree to back up his claim that he could safely bottle rainwater for human drinking.

After he was rejected by the government regulators, he went back to them after a few years but this time with an engineer in hand. Because of this, the government approved his idea and the rest is history. His established a profitable business out of rainwater which other people copied.

To show you how profitable his idea of bottling rainwater, I would state that according to the website zoominfo, the company has a profit of $2 million while only having 14 employees.

In 2020, they entered into an agreement with another water bottler to further expand the consumer reach of their business. This is a good evidence that a rainwater bottling business is very viable.

It Could Be Illegal To Harvest Rainwater

If you are getting interested in selling rainwater yourself, do take note of the rules in your area or country first. Your country or local governments might have laws against the harvesting of rainwater for commercial purposes.

I see no danger in the government not allowing you to harvest rainwater for personal use such as cleaning your house, car and even watering your plants. The government might however prevent you or even fine you for harvesting water in such large scale that they disrupt the natural flow of the environment around you.

Conclusion

Letting rainwater to just seep into the ground when it rains is a big waste. Many parts of the world are not lucky to have regular sources of clean and potable water so consider yourself lucky that you still at least have rainwater as a source of alternative water supply.

Rainwater can be used for cleaning, have several uses for your car, is healthier for your plants as against tap water, good for fire prevention and lastly for human drinking consumption. Rainwater is so good for human drinking consumption that there are now companies making good money bottling it.

You might also like to read the article: Make Money from Water.