[rpiguy]

Plants require water. Yes we can solve the plastic problem by growing more plants, but then we will have a water problem as plants, heavy industry, chemical production, recycling (which uses a lot of water), power production (most use steam), live stock, and human water consumption all compete.

I mean I guess we could melt the ice caps for more water...

[soulofmischief]

What an incredible false dichotomy. Which do you want, less fossil fuels, or melting the ice caps?

Oh wait! I forgot that burning fossil fuels is already melting the ice caps.

[ryanmercer]

>What an incredible false dichotomy.

I think their point is more "We're already running out of water, aquifer depletion is a thing on multiple continents and there are now cities that have officially run out of fresh water. Adding even more farming, which requires water input above and beyond natural rainfall, is just going to worsen another dire issue".

[smileysteve]

> adding even more farming, which requires water input above and beyond natural rainfall

Hemp (referenced in a sibling thread) is known as weed because it is drought tolerant and often requires less water than non invasive species. Kudzu and Bamboo are also invasive species that are drought tolerant when compared to most and even natural land uses.

You're missing the mass amounts of water to extract plastic from oil.

[ryanmercer]

>You're missing the mass amounts of water to extract plastic from oil.

The water that effectively stays in a closed system and can likely be treated on-site for nearly immediate reuse? The water that doesn't largely evaporate (70 percent of the annual precipitation returns to the atmosphere by evaporation, I assume water from irrigation is still several tens of percent) and cause soil erosion?

It takes 180 L of water to produce 1 kg of plastic and 302-492 L for 1kg of hemp based on a quick Google query.

[soulofmischief]

ExxonMobil sits at the epicenter of one of the top 3 purest water tables in the nation, squat on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge. [0]

The insane amount of water they use for oil refinement is causing the entire surrounding area to leech hard water. What was once the softest table in the region is now becoming infested with salt water.

I have seen the water table schematics, I used to live a couple of miles from the plant and I can tell you that even in the last decade it's gotten noticeably worse.

This is objectively worse than the alternative, using hemp for biodiesel and bioplastics which requires far less water and doesn't ruin the environment.

[0] https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_cadd93c...

[ryanmercer]

That water isn't being used to make plastic though. It's being used to refine crude oil into: gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, gas oil, naphtha, reduced crude etc. That stuff is going to be refined with or without the plastic end use purely for the various other things that get manufactured from crude oil.

Something like 10% is what gets used to as raw chemicals for further manufacture of goods. Overall about 5% of the original crude gets manufactured into PVC/polystyrene/nylon/PU/PP/polyester etc.

I was specifically comparing the amount of water to manufacture 1kg of plastic and 1kg of dry hemp.