Does anyone have any data on how much water it takes to create plastics? I am specifically interested in figuring out how much water is needed to create large (500 to 30,000 US gallons) tanks used to collect and store water for later use and in determining how many times the tank would need to be filled before there was a net savings in water.
Cheers!
-m
Mark Taratoot
Water Resources Specialist
Corvallis Public Works
[email protected]
541-766-6916
Water Use to Produce Plastics
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Hi Mark,
Your filling may need to go on for ever. It is said to take 2 litres of water to manufacture a bottle that holds 1 litre of water. I'm also responding here to other messages on today's Alert. Sigrid commented that "... the obvious missing link is what happens to the cup once it is used - landfill, recycling... and the energy used in that process. I would think it makes the outcome of the equation different." The arguments involved in the disposable v. re-useable cups debate must take into account the full life-history (often known as cradle-to-grave history) of the item, and it can take quite a lively imagination to include everything, especially the 'invisible' ones: trucking the disposables to a landfill, packaging and trucking detergent to the stores for purchase for washing the re-useable ones, as well as the more visible ones like manufacture of either kind and trucking them to wherever, to sell. While the overheads associated with manufacturing one china mug are likely to prove greater than those to make one paper cup, it's the incessant repetitions of the latter which add up over time, whereas your china mug has only to be made once (until you break it, or others covet it and filch it). I would also imagine that broken china can more nearly weather down into soil than can polystyrene or whatever plastic is used in the other type. Sigrid also asks, "what happens to the cup when used". In my neck of the woods it is all too obvious what happens to them - they get tossed out of vehicle windows along with emptied water-bottles, and litter our once-lovely highways. Is that our best modern interpretation of "re-cycling"? What with George Monbiot's all too poignant remarks about the new ethos of Being A Good Green Guy, it seems that we have to take most of the Non-Converts back to elementary school and teach them the basic, the fundamental, the obvious, the unavoidable facts about the Three R's. What many of the Non-Converts do not seem to have been taught yet about Environmental Concerns is that (1) the issues are serious, (2) they apply to all human activities and thus require actual thought, and (3) they involve - MUST involve - everyone.
Elizabeth Griffin
(Victoria, Canada)