U.S. firm bottles rainwater harvested from rooftops

Water harvested from rooftops is filtered with ultraviolet light and reverse osmosis before packaging

Bottled rainwater.

When most bottling water companies around the world are digging deeper, a company in Texas, U.S., looks up to the sky for its source.

With a tag line of catching rain straight from the sky, Richard’s Rainwater says it bears the distinction of being the first bottled water company to do so. It also offers some interesting trivia: 53,300 raindrops are held in a 500 ml bottle.

Access to clean water is the biggest challenge that the world faces now and yet much of the rainwater gets drained into ocean, said Taylor O’Neil, chief executive officer, Richard’s Rainwater.

Founded in 2000 by Richard Heinichen, it was the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration- approved company to sell rainwater in bottles.

Rootop harvesting

About 3 cm of rainfall on 1,000 sq.ft. of land would yield nearly 2,082 litres of clean water. Water is tapped from the roof of sites in Dripping Springs, Texas and Kiln, Mississippi.

Rainwater is captured into a fibreglass tank. The rain for the initial 10 minutes is flushed. Then, it is triple-filtered with ultraviolet light, reverse osmosis and ozone instead of chlorine.

In Lazy Magnolia brewery, Mississippi, 152 cm of annual rainfall is tapped on 49,000 sq.ft. of rooftop. This yields six million litres of water adequate for 2,000 persons annually.

“Our process uses less energy and produces less waste. We don’t deplete municipal sources or groundwater. We want to expand to more collection sites and pick locations where drought is less likely. We store rainwater to ensure production without disruption,” said Mr. O’Neil.

The company aims to produce two million bottles of filtered rainwater this year. Rainwater has a chloride level of less than 15 parts per million even before purification. In comparison, other potable water sources test up to 250 ppm.

Though there are a few companies that have begun to tap rainwater, they blend other drinking water sources with rainwater, he said, adding: “We use recyclable plastic packaging material.”

Richard’s Rainwater plans to patent the filtration process. In a few years, it may go more eco-friendly with plant-based light weight options for packaging.

(The journalist was on a reporting tour on ‘Water: Creating a More Water Secure Future’, organised by Washington D.C. Foreign Press Center, U.S. Department of State)