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NotYetSoonEnough t1_je0rfoa wrote

Reply to comment by k-laz in More Water Found on Moon, Locked in Tiny Glass Beads by LanceOhio

I’ve thought about this. Has there ever been a realistic estimation on whether or not there’s water being held captive inside of plastic bottles in landfills?

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k-laz t1_je0yesl wrote

I found this source suggesting 22 million gallons annually.

https://www.qwet.net/blog/trapped-water-in-plastic-water-bottles-is-a-very-real-problem

It's on the internet, so it must be true.

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lolwutpear t1_je1xgkp wrote

>22 million gallons annually

Or about 67 acre-feet. For comparison, California's reservoirs have a capacity of slightly over 40 million acre-feet.

Obviously we should try to conserve fresh water everywhere, but I think we've got bigger fish to fry.

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Orffen t1_je2doz3 wrote

This is the first time I’ve heard of acre-feet. Why can’t we just use OSI measurements like football fields?!

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Neonvaporeon t1_je2g4lv wrote

Acre-feet is an agricultural term so that's probably why you haven't heard of it. Feet of water is generally used to describe how much water a plant needs, acre-feet are how much water a crop needs (almonds need 4 acre-feet of water annually in California.)

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Orffen t1_je2hoak wrote

But a foot is a measurement of length isn’t it? Why would you describe a volume of water using feet?

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Neonvaporeon t1_je2ivgw wrote

Plants generally capture water through their roots which typically spread evenly in all directions, water travels down through the soil until it hits a ledge then travels along its path (called percolation.) That means a rough measure of the amount of water is plenty to guage requirements for shallow rooted plants, like most food crops. An acre is a measure of area and a foot is a measure of length, combined those give the 3 dimensions to make volume. Water is sold by volume, and for agricultural purposes that is the measure it is sold by to farms (typically.)

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CaptainKink t1_je2j8ac wrote

One acre of land covered with water one foot deep. One step short of just calculating total volume. Much simpler to work with for the farmers.

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warthog0869 t1_je2u2px wrote

Plus, if you don't build it within the acreage confines of the well-watered cornfields, Ray Liotta and them won't come.

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Kapitan_eXtreme t1_je2z3se wrote

The hell is an acre-foot?

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cratermoon t1_je31dgs wrote

The volume of water it would take to cover an area of acre to a depth of 1 foot. That's 43560 cubic feet, 325,851 gallons, or 1,233,481.8 liters

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EightballTV t1_je1lcm6 wrote

"Very real problem"

I mean, it's real, it's not a problem though, lmao.

"Oh no, this water doesn't go back into the water cycle"

As if we don't have a planet with 90% oceans and issues with global warming and rising sea levels, soon it will be 95% lol. Maybe we should be putting MORE in bottles, fuck me, what a non issue.

Infact, the more I read that article, the more I realise how much bullshit it actually is. They seem to think water in bottles is no longer in our atmosphere. No, it's still in our atmosphere. Plastic doesn't last forever. We aren't launching it into the sun ffs.

"While nearly 70% of the world is covered by water, only 2.5% of it is fresh. The rest is saline and ocean-based. Even then, just 1% of our freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields."

They do know how rain works, yeah? That the 2.5% fresh water is taken from the oceans, then dropped onto the mountains as rain, where the mountains filter it? Have they even heard of clouds before? I mean, I was taught that at like 8 years old or less.

And if you wanna talk about droughts, and the effect of droughts, then I can guarantee you the droughts were not caused by some water being in a bottle, lmao. Maybe they should take up a new cause that actually matters, like global warming.

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Fit-Capital1526 t1_je1nhfm wrote

An awful lot of water is locked in the ground anyway. This has very little affect overall. It barely touches what is entering the short term water cycle from the melting of Greenland (which was declared doomed a few years ago)

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ThatLeetGuy t1_je3467a wrote

I actually think about this every time I throw away a water bottle, because I do use them often. I always dump liquid contents from bottles before I throw them out. I don't do a lot for environment conservation, but not littering and not throwing water into landfills are the two mounds I'll die on.

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NotYetSoonEnough t1_je36cdd wrote

I know this doesn’t sound like much but I appreciate that you do these things.

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