[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.

[soulofmischief]

Yes; my post specifically mentioned biodiesel.