• Grace shows us in her video here how to use a rainwater tank . The tank is installed at Auburn Girls High School, NSW, as part of a grant by NSW Education and its Sustainable Infrastructure section to trial options for composting
By
Grace Canapari, intern with Sustainable House
In Australia, eating the typical diet, each day we eat food with at least 3,000 litres of water in it. This rain tank at Auburn Girls High School holds 3,000 litres of rainwater harvested from the school roof.
It is a 'mirror' for the school's compost trial garden with various compost options and where the school is gathering data seeking to answer the question, "What is a good compost system?".
A 'mirror' because each day food waste from the school canteen, the library and other locations is put into the compost options, as the school seeks to also reduce or end food waste there.
Three ways the tank is used are:
to harvest rain water and stop it being wasted to run away to pollute local waterways
overflow from the tank is diverted below ground to irrigate the plants and trees
water from the tank is drained by gravity through a hose to irrigate the nearby plants and trees.
Grace Canapari, Intern