Paper Title
The Efficiency of Using Pet Bottles that Contain Plastic Scraps to Reduce Water Source Evaporation
Abstract
Evaporation is one of the causes of water loss from reservoirs in agriculture. The costly method of covering up the reservoirs with commercial products makes it impossible for smallholder farmers to implement. This paper presents a method of using polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles to be filled with an opaque material floating on the water surface to reduce evaporation loss. The opaque materials that are packaged are laminated aluminum foil (LAF) and Assorted plastic bags (APB). The experiment was performed using three experimental ponds covered with empty PET bottles, bottles filled with LAF, and bottles filled with APB, which were controlled by the controlling pond without floating materials. The experiment showed that evaporation decreased by 19.2%, 23.2%, and 32.3%, respectively. The water surface temperature of the pond covered with empty bottles was the highest, followed by APB-filled bottles, LAF-filled bottles, and controlling pond, respectively. The unit costs of empty PET bottles, APB-filled bottles, and LAF-filled bottles are 1.71, 4.18, and 3.19 baht/cubic meter, respectively..
Keywords - Evaporation Reduction, Drought, PET Bottles, Waste Reuse.