4 ms·

As long as this runoff does not contain herbicides, I can't see why not would help to clean the water. Is called plant filter and is used on aquariums since dec

As long as this runoff does not contain herbicides, I can't see why not would help to clean the water. Is called plant filter and is used on aquariums since decades. But in winter they will die, so a part of this nutrients will be released again. Trees would be much better for that

justworkout 3y ago
The first paragraph of the article is about doing this to harvest flowers for economic reasons, so a significant amount of the nutrients are being removed from the waterways and wrapped in plastic to be sold. (unfortunately, this experiment was also done on top of beds of floating plastic) Hopefully someday we can move beyond the desire for grass lawns, since that's where a lot of this waste is coming from.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  So it's more that the nitrogen etc is moved elsewhere. Distribution is probably for the best I suppose. Also, plenty of florists use paper wrappers, there's no particular reason to prefer plastic.
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    If you have your own compost system then it can help your own garden. Or alternatively hopefully your council has a green waste collection and it can go there.
- verve_rat 3y ago
  > Hopefully someday we can move beyond the desire for grass lawns, since that's where a lot of this waste is coming from. Do you have a source for that? As someone that is farm adjacent (not just physically) my intuition tells me that run off from lawns would be a rounding error compared to agricultural and horticultural run off.
  - ttyprintk 3y ago
    In most states, lawn is the biggest crop.
    - jvanderbot 3y ago
      This is pithy and needs a citation as much as other responses. agriculture use is massive. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/america-land-use/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/america-land-use/ I used to work with precision ag and fish ecology depts at univ of Minnesota. In much of the Midwest, it is farm upon farm as far as the eye can see. Both these depts primary focus was on reduction or mitigation of nutrient runoff from farms. But, in urban areas, it is absolutely correct that a good portion of the lakes have issues due to lawn runoff (summer) and salt runoff (winter). The local lake manager said that winter salt is the single most damaging contribution of people in our one instance. A lake in the next county over was devastated by phosphorous from lawn treatment. One next door was being savaged by carp. Water is a precious resource and has multi vector threats. Where you live it may have a bunch of different problems, but for much of my state, and surrounding Midwest states where farms are widespread, farm runoff dominates simply because on a per acre sampling, farms dominate.
      - ttyprintk 3y ago
        All believable, but if we’re talking overall, NASA says satellite imagery shows the irrigated area for turf outweighing the next eight crops combined. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Lawn/lawn2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Lawn/lawn2.php Looks like Visual Capitalist is just hosting maps from McHarg, https://mcharg.upenn.edu/ https://mcharg.upenn.edu/ I don’t know if McHarg collects data that can be compared with NASA.
        jvanderbot 3y ago
        That's very interesting. It should be pointed out that all of NASAs data is open (by law - source I used to work there, subject to a short embargo for phds to be written). So anyone could have the same data underneath. But this analysis is cool. So, the questions that remain: 1. Are lawns more or less likely to be treated with chemicals that harm waterways 2. Are lawns more or less likely to produce runoff of those treatments 3. Given answers to above is the net effect more or less than agriculture on our water. I'm not seeing much that answers those questions specifically. It does appear there's regulations against phosphorous lawn fertilizer nowadays. But that's all I can find on a cursory search. I'm happy to believe they both are equally important nowadays.

justworkout 3y ago

The first paragraph of the article is about doing this to harvest flowers for economic reasons, so a significant amount of the nutrients are being removed from the waterways and wrapped in plastic to be sold. (unfortunately, this experiment was also done on top of beds of floating plastic) Hopefully someday we can move beyond the desire for grass lawns, since that's where a lot of this waste is coming from.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
So it's more that the nitrogen etc is moved elsewhere. Distribution is probably for the best I suppose. Also, plenty of florists use paper wrappers, there's no particular reason to prefer plastic.
- stephen_g 3y ago
  If you have your own compost system then it can help your own garden. Or alternatively hopefully your council has a green waste collection and it can go there.
verve_rat 3y ago
> Hopefully someday we can move beyond the desire for grass lawns, since that's where a lot of this waste is coming from. Do you have a source for that? As someone that is farm adjacent (not just physically) my intuition tells me that run off from lawns would be a rounding error compared to agricultural and horticultural run off.
- ttyprintk 3y ago
  In most states, lawn is the biggest crop.
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    This is pithy and needs a citation as much as other responses. agriculture use is massive. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/america-land-use/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/america-land-use/ I used to work with precision ag and fish ecology depts at univ of Minnesota. In much of the Midwest, it is farm upon farm as far as the eye can see. Both these depts primary focus was on reduction or mitigation of nutrient runoff from farms. But, in urban areas, it is absolutely correct that a good portion of the lakes have issues due to lawn runoff (summer) and salt runoff (winter). The local lake manager said that winter salt is the single most damaging contribution of people in our one instance. A lake in the next county over was devastated by phosphorous from lawn treatment. One next door was being savaged by carp. Water is a precious resource and has multi vector threats. Where you live it may have a bunch of different problems, but for much of my state, and surrounding Midwest states where farms are widespread, farm runoff dominates simply because on a per acre sampling, farms dominate.
    - ttyprintk 3y ago
      All believable, but if we’re talking overall, NASA says satellite imagery shows the irrigated area for turf outweighing the next eight crops combined. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Lawn/lawn2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Lawn/lawn2.php Looks like Visual Capitalist is just hosting maps from McHarg, https://mcharg.upenn.edu/ https://mcharg.upenn.edu/ I don’t know if McHarg collects data that can be compared with NASA.
      - jvanderbot 3y ago
        That's very interesting. It should be pointed out that all of NASAs data is open (by law - source I used to work there, subject to a short embargo for phds to be written). So anyone could have the same data underneath. But this analysis is cool. So, the questions that remain: 1. Are lawns more or less likely to be treated with chemicals that harm waterways 2. Are lawns more or less likely to produce runoff of those treatments 3. Given answers to above is the net effect more or less than agriculture on our water. I'm not seeing much that answers those questions specifically. It does appear there's regulations against phosphorous lawn fertilizer nowadays. But that's all I can find on a cursory search. I'm happy to believe they both are equally important nowadays.