Painted Plastic - does it matter?

All polyethylene plastic has what is known as a high expansion/contraction ratio compared to other materials such as wood or metal. What this means to the end user is that the winter-to-summer change in physical dimensions of any plastic rain barrel can be easily measured with a common tape measure. This is a huge problem for common paint.

The bottom-line issue is that the paints found at the typical hardware store cannot accept this radical fluctuation in size, so they will crack and very soon start the process of falling completely off of the rain barrel. Be aware of any painted plastic.