mirainbarrel CEO Joshua Rubin Interviewed by The Jewish News Detroit

Our CEO Joshua Rubin was interviewed by the Detroit Jewish News. It was a highlight in an article about the Whitney in Detroit going green. They did a great job capturing what mirainbarrel and Joshua are all about, Check out Joshua’s interview below and there is a link to the whole article on their website below too!

(Below is an excerpt from an article in the Detroit Jewish News, wrote by Stacy Gittleman, published Oct. 3, 2017.)

Joshua Rubin: 
Rain Barrels Catch Storm Water

When barrels of Mediterranean olives and pickles reach American shores, they could wind up in landfills — or they can have a second life saving water and keeping our Great Lakes clean when they are repurposed into rain barrels.

Joshua Rubin of Farmington Hills wants more Detroiters to “disconnect from their downspouts” that send storm water down the drain and overtax our sewers, lakes and rivers. Instead, he advocates storing the water in the rain barrels he designs for his company, MiRainBarrel.com.

Rubin comes from a family of barrel makers. His great-grandfather Charley Rubin founded Detroit Beer and was once a wooden barrel cooper who distributed barrels to bootleggers from Windsor to Chicago during Prohibition.

Seven years ago, Rubin began working with food manufacturers to collect empty 55-gallon drums, fit them with nozzles and openings for downspouts and sell or give them away across Metro Detroit. In 2016, he partnered with the Sierra Club Great Lakes Program and the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy to create a scholarship to give away rain barrels to deserving organizations and urban farms in Detroit. This summer, he showed off his products at the Michigan Jewish Food Festival at the Eastern Market.

The MiRainBarrel brand centers around easy-to-assemble rain barrel kits. In the seven years he’s been in business, Rubin also has developed products such as compost tumblers and vertical gardening containers. Each product is designed with conservation in mind and helps fulfill the company mission of providing customers solutions to live more environmentally sustainable lives.

“Everyone likes the DIY feel of these barrels,” he said. “I like empowering my customers with the knowledge that we live alongside the world’s largest supply of fresh water. It is our job to protect it, and we can do that by catching storm water that flows off our homes, mixes with oils and other pollutants on our streets, and flows into our rivers and streams.”

Read the full article on the Jewish News Detroit.