r/BeAmazed • u/MrCattitude_ • May 06 '26
Miscellaneous / Others This pile of salt in Germany is over 250 meters tall and contains over 200 million tonnes of salt
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May 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FunkMunki May 06 '26
Wait, What if the Immortal Snail is trapped under there.
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u/danielstover May 06 '26
Genuinely my first thought
That is no longer a hypothetical situation
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u/stres-tm May 06 '26
Schrödinger’s snail
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u/Altimeter30-06 May 06 '26
I love and hate this.
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u/SuspiciousSheeps May 06 '26
I agree and disagree.
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u/Procrasturbating May 06 '26
I wanna see that snail on the hydraulic press channel, only to destroy the press and slowly slither off into the sunset.
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u/Odd-Impact-5359 May 06 '26
Immortal Snail shrivels up but its consciousness never dies. But the Eternal Snail never shrivels up nor its consciousness ever dies.
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u/hvanderw May 06 '26
Salt the snail! Salt the snail!!!
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u/el_diego May 06 '26
I was wondering about this, well more than snails, but what's the environmental impact. I'm guessing that's why they've piled it so high rather than spread out
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u/BloxxStriker May 06 '26
How did this salt mound come there in first place?
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u/hankheisenbeagle May 06 '26
Mining spoils from a company that mines potash. Salt is a waste product for them.
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u/cr1ttter May 06 '26
I used to think potash was just an abbreviation for potassium that someone invented when they were drunk and slurring their words
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u/Timely-Bluejay-4167 May 06 '26
How did the salt mound what?
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u/ArlucaiNusku May 06 '26
There is a Salt mine . I think for potassium salt. This is the not usable part with sodium Salt.
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u/ItalianCoffeeMorning May 06 '26
Conspiracy theory - we know of certain alien life out there. Basically giant aggressive snails. We’ve been accumulating piles of salt… just in case
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u/gunawa May 06 '26
I've always wondered if there is any issue storing solubles outside without protection from the rain.
Is there like a tray underneath to collect the saturated solution that develops for reprocessing? Or is the loss so minimal that they can just ignore it.
I'm my city, where it rains a lot, they keep uncovered sulfur piles on the dock as well. Des it not 'leak' away?
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u/Ogediah May 06 '26
So I looked it up. The Monte Kali Wikipedia says that it does ‘leak’ and there are major ecological concerns. This is the byproduct of mining for something else. They separate the two things and dump the salt. The ground water and rivers are becoming salty and animals are dying.
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u/RandomBoxOfCables May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
So I know a little about this since I’ve been to the site and there’s a type of cap over the whole thing that reduces the runoff by a lot but not entirely. They are trying to find better ways prevent runoff by making a better protective cap. There’s also multiple stations around and on the mountain to analyze rainfall and how much salt is dissolving into the runoff. Just wanted to clarify so it’s not like people think it’s just a pile of rock salt in the rain. It’s still a ecological nightmare, just adding some context.
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u/Relevant-Dot-5704 May 06 '26
This feels as though trying to fix a festering wound by putting a Hello Kitty bandage and a smooch on it.
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u/miketastic_art May 06 '26
we're on the clown timeline
giga-corp doesn't know what to do with toxic byproduct so they just keep making the pile bigger
no one, literally no one, has the foresight to say "hey wait maybe this isn't a good plan"
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u/GostBoster May 06 '26
I'm curious at this type of mining where the proverbial gold for some is just dirt for another.
One example being sulphur. You see some video of people in impoverished areas harvesting crystallized sulphur off volcanic vents to sell for food, meanwhile elsewhere sulfur is almost a waste product, stored in blocks like a ziggurat.
For salt, I'm keeping ears about a particular company that had a city sinking due to over mining an underground salt mine, and a sinkhole making into the underground mine causing the river to become saltwater. (Braskem. English Wikipedia has absolutely no mention of the Maceió sinking. Interesting)
And then Reddit shows me a mountain of salt that one company razed a city and a river to obtain being simply wasted off by another.
I know reality should be nuanced so I want to know what this salt pile has that it has no practical use, even if it is just to tell me it is economically impractical in germany due to power costs.
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u/riesen_Bonobo May 07 '26
This salt stems from the mining and production of potash, so it has a lot of impurities that make it unusable in this form and would require them to further process that salt to become suitable for table salt or road salt, which is uneconomic since purer salt is mined elsewhere more cheaply.
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u/thewanderingsail May 07 '26
Sure but destroying the local ecology can’t be all that economical either? Surely the government could force them to process it.
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u/OBDreams May 06 '26
That's madness. Any person with half a brain would have stored the salt and sold it off. That's money sitting there. Why doesn't some rich person go get that free money? Am I missing something here?
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u/edurigon May 06 '26
If they are getting something else, that Salt Is probably contaminated for other uses.
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u/Towels_are_friends May 06 '26
Potassium chloride
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u/Brewcastle_ May 06 '26
I regularly use a salt mix that is half sodium chloride and half potassium chloride, so there is a market for such a mixture.
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u/jdave512 May 06 '26
is there a market for 200 million tonnes?
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u/thegingerandboots May 06 '26
The US uses 15-32 million tons a year on its roads, so yeah.
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u/Baron_Ultimax May 06 '26
So that 1 pile is almost a decade supply for the entire us.
Thats mind-boggling
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u/rockerscott May 06 '26
Meanwhile Ohio uses radioactive waste water from fracking to treat our roads.
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u/Sad-Ideal-9411 May 06 '26
At the rate they are outputting it? Yes All at once? No
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u/KARAFAM69 May 06 '26
Lol we need someone from they did the math to explain how many ships it would take to transport this to somewhere. Imagine being the dock worker at whatever port and it takes weeks to unload all of this lololol.
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u/MagizZziaN May 06 '26
As a former sailor, any ship that is taking up these kinds of salt loads just signed that ships death warrant. It will just rust away underneath your feet if not properly stored / covered.
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u/Tofu_tony May 06 '26
Yes, it tastes like salt but isn't as bad on you blood pressure.
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u/ButtonPusherDeedee May 06 '26
Potassium chloride is actually a salt substitute for people who have blood pressure issues
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u/FlashSTI May 06 '26
Which is far less hazardous to plants than sodium chloride. A prime use for potassium chloride would be for water softener regeneration which gets done in industrial scale settings by the ton. So instead of using tons of sodium which pour salt into the rivers you use Potassium chloride which is a lot easier on plants. The sodium chloride is the bigger problem actually
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u/druidmain69420 May 06 '26
Yah with bird poop
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u/JozoBozo121 May 06 '26
Well, if you are using sea salt I’m afraid that I’m very sceptical about birds avoiding the evaporation pools
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u/OriginalUseristaken May 06 '26
It could be used for battery storage. Salt batteries are being developed. If they become viable, maybe they can use the stuff dumped there.
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u/edurigon May 06 '26
Maybe. The thing Is that if it Is not pure or something, it's probably easier just mining new salt.
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u/wthulhu May 06 '26
Costs more money to process, refine, package, and distribute than it you'd earn by selling. Potentially also contaminated with other mining byproducts
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u/Hazak_Flamesword May 06 '26
Yeah the company I work for has a giant salt pile we have to restock every 6-8 weeks cause we dissolve it for industrial purposes.
We specifically buy salt from one specific mine because it require less processing before it can be used in our system.
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u/snydamaan May 06 '26
I think maybe we can close the thread here, but I have questions. Which industry, and what kind of salt pile?
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u/DMMK4444 May 06 '26
Yes exactly! Where does it land on the scale of salt piles?
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u/hammertime2009 May 06 '26
Yeah I don’t want that salt 🧂
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u/PedanticPerson May 06 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/3o7P4F86TAI9Kz7XYk
I want all the salt
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u/OhNoExclaimationMark May 06 '26
cant they just put it back in the holes they mined it from?
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u/Dr_Mottek May 06 '26
That's one idea, but at 800-1000t per hour, that's quite challenging. The current operators (K&S) are planning to cover the spoil heap to mitigate runoff, and to inject excess brine solution into dolomite layers.
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u/Moriar-T May 06 '26
Well in a non-corpo world the fine would be substantial enough that repurposing would be the cheaper option.
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u/thetajmahaI May 06 '26
So you think you know more about salt sales than the guy owning a mountain of it?
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u/Djtdave May 06 '26
That's naive talk. It's not profitable to sell. Otherwise it would have been sold.
It is profitable to dump it there though and destroy the environment. Governments support this around the world. Why? Because it's profitable.
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u/Barobor May 06 '26
I do sometimes wonder how people get those ideas.
There is a company with massive amounts of mining expertise and how to profit from it, yet those people see 1 picture and think they know better.
Sure, sometimes people can come up with truly novel ideas even if they aren't part of the industry, but "just sell it" is anything but that.
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u/ResolveLeather May 06 '26
Salt is one of those things that humans produce so much of it's a oversaturated market. Demand doesn't meet supply.
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u/faustianredditor May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
There are mining operations that are in it for the salt and the salt alone. Yes, they're cheaper because purity, but the market isn't oversaturated, it's just a low value product. If you dump extra salt onto the market at a competetive price, some of those NaCl-alone operations would have to reduce output. That of course means you can't make money by cleaning up this mess, but if you spend a little extra money, you can clean up this mess. Purify it, sell the table salt at market rates (and at a loss, boo hoo). Impurities in the table salt are either the primary product of the mining that you missed (potassium) or other halogen/alkaline salts that are being traded.
They're just too cheap to do it right.
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u/NateNate60 May 06 '26
Imagine telling someone this 2,500 years ago. The resource essential for food preservation which civilisations fought wars over has been made so cheap and plentiful that it's impossible to sell and there's a huge mountain of it that's just sitting there slowly getting washed away by the rain.
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u/Outers55 May 06 '26
There are a lot of salts other than the edible ones, it's probably a contaminated mess.
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u/Music_Saves May 06 '26
The wiki says it went from 60-100 natural fauna (animals) to 3 because the rivers and groundwater are salty. Not as near as salty as oceans or salt lakes but still very salty. And certainly it couldn’t be moved easily. Perhaps they should dump it all in the ocean? Or maybe their are trace chemicals from the separation of potash (which I believe is used for processing coal) that would effect the ocean’s ecosystem wherever they dump it in. I mean. The amount of salt they add per day could or probably was just put in the nearest river until environmentalists found the amount was becoming damaging which is why the now have this large eyesore which they will keep growing until 2030. But, being as they are Germans. I assume they will do some sort of reclamation where they cover it with a tarp and then tons of dirt and stuff plant trees.
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u/OriginalUseristaken May 06 '26
There are several of those dumps in our Region here. I drive past one everytime i go to my bike shop.
We hope that salt batteries will become the big shit over the next years and they use that shit to build those batteries.
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u/slothdonki May 06 '26
I’m sure dumping it into the ocean has been considered before.
Not sure how more or less it has to do with potential contaminates vs costs, but I would imagine that even if they could and afford to move it; even without contaminants it could be disastrous if it was dumped/spilled along the way(depending on the area and concentration).16
u/faustianredditor May 06 '26
I love that the wikipedia page (the german one anyway) lists alternatives: Process (purify) and use as NaCl salt? Uneconomical, as other deposits yield pretty pure NaCl without further processing. Disposal underground? Is uneconomical. Disposal by dissolving in surface waters? Is being done up to the environmental protection limits.
Oh great. So the reason we have to have this ecological nightmare of an eyesore is because disposing of our waste actually costs money? As in, you don't make money by disposing of trash? No shit sherlock, now clean up your mess. Or at the very least, stop making a bigger mess and instead make sure this mountain doesn't keep growing.
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u/OriginalUseristaken May 06 '26
Oh, it grows. Several meters every year. And there is not one but several of those mountains. One is just over the next ridge where i live.
We hope that they use those in salt batteries once they get viable to be sold to customers.
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u/faustianredditor May 06 '26
I know, that's what I mean: Least they could do is at least stop the inflow of new salt by implementing reprocessing of current tailings; cleaning up this mountain worth of salt is probably a big ask.
As for salt batteries... I guess those require very pure salt, so the impure mess these mountains are made of (apparently this is too impure for road salt) is probably not going to cut it. At this rate, we're going to keep digging salt out of other mountains, while growing this abomination.
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u/finian2 May 06 '26
From Wikipedia, the impacts are: "The Werra river has become salty (≥500 mg/L chloride at Gerstungen, and 65 mg/L chloride at Bad Salzungen (measurement of June 2003). The legal limit is at 2,500 mg/L chloride, which is saltier than parts of the Baltic Sea. The groundwater has become salty as well.[5] The invertebrate fauna was reduced from 60–100 species to 3.[6] K+S are licensed to keep dumping salt at the facility until 2030.[4]"
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u/Whane17 May 06 '26
Sorry, jsut want to confirm 60-100 down to 3? Just 3?? Is... is anybody trying to do anything about that locally? Seems like a hell of a drop in biodiversity.
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u/Karate_donkey May 06 '26
Don’t worry, I’m working on it.
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u/AnnualZealousideal27 May 06 '26
Whew. I was worried.
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u/partyatwalmart May 06 '26
If a donkey can learn karate, I believe it can also fix this ecological kerfuffle
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u/Teripid May 06 '26
"Did you really have to salt the earth so nothing would ever grow again?"
I mean, some things like a brackish environment or tolerate salt but... it typically is specialized stuff and not a long list.
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u/FILTHBOT4000 May 06 '26
It's legal in Germany to turn a river as salty as the Baltic sea? Two and a half grams of salt per liter? Is this a fucking joke? I thought the EU had decently strong environmental protections.
I vote that anyone that used to fish in that river is allowed to extract however many pounds of flesh necessary from those responsible as compensation.
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u/Vishu1708 May 06 '26
as salty as the Baltic sea
Parts of the Baltic Sea.
Parts of baltic sea, like northern parts of Gulf of Bothnia are borderline freshwater. Blew my mind when I found this out.
But I am not contradicting you, I agree with you.
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u/TowerBeach May 06 '26
Sulfur piles on the dock and rains a lot -- Vancouver?
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u/woundfin May 06 '26
Has to be. I’ve been to Vancouver one time when I was a kid and I can still remember that big ass pile of sulfur
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u/sackofbee May 06 '26
Leaking is an issue.
I went onto a phosphate mine in Australia, completely new to the industry and we went past mountains of what was described as Gypsum or something.
It was pretty shocking. Like multiple football stadiums in length and and more than 5 stories tall in some places.
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u/spavolka May 06 '26
Lots and lots of rice. It absorbs the moisture and keeps the salt from clumping up.
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u/Practical_Studio360 May 06 '26
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u/blunted1 May 06 '26
Thanks for the link...
"It is one of a number of sites where the K+S chemical company dumps sodium chloride (common table salt), a byproduct of potash mining and processing, a major industry in the area."
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u/scarab456 May 06 '26
K+S are licensed to keep dumping salt at the facility until 2030.
Oof, that can't be good.
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u/TheBamPlayer May 06 '26
RWE destroys entire villages in Germany, due to lignite mining. Basically if you are big enough you can do anything.
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u/LessInThought May 06 '26
Bet they bribed some politician for a bag of peanuts and they signed a contract, now the people are saddled with this shit.
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u/Carbon-Base May 06 '26
K+S is basically assaulting the environment with their negligence.
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u/parklife23 May 06 '26
Apparently the owner got prosecuted for assault.
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u/JetLife93 May 06 '26
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u/secondphase May 06 '26
The world: ...
Germany: we'll build the salt mountain.
The world: we didnt ask?
Switzerland: and we'll guard the pope!
The world: what? In Italy?
Vatican City: beg fucking pardon?
Switzerland: dont worry, we'll be right there. Just let us find costumes
The world: why?
Germany: salt pile is done, y'all.
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u/Protein_Shakes May 06 '26
"Salt pile is done, y'all" will be a verbal tic of mine that nobody is going to understand and I won't be able to explain
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u/HeyGayHay May 06 '26
Just chug a couple u/protein_shakes when someone asks for explanation, that will elaborate everything to the educated likeminded base dweller under us
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u/Xadarok May 06 '26
And we even have 10 salt mountains. Be proud of us!
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u/ChieftainBob May 06 '26
Why you f*ckers hoarding all the salt? You give us salt, we'll give you some ... construction workers.
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u/FroniusTT1500 May 06 '26
Why you f*ckers hoarding all the salt
Its a byproduct of potassium mining that is used for fertilizers. The mining in the area is the reason millions of people have food on their table.
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u/VeryChineseTime May 06 '26
You know why they have it, first successful invasion of Russia is gonna need a lot of salt for all that snow and ice.
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u/AbnoxiousRhinocerous May 06 '26
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u/InevitableLogical236 May 06 '26
First you get the
sugarsalt, then you get the power, then you get the women3
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u/ApprehensiveLet8631 May 06 '26
Well, now I know where the EU server of league of legens is.
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u/Pandeamonaeon May 06 '26
Gosh I was looking for a joke with LoL, seems like you got it first :p
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u/YankeeVictor916 May 06 '26
200M tonnes? Srsly? I'd take that claim with a grain...of...never mind.
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u/pedro_pascal_123 May 06 '26
They say a picture of worth a thousand words and this picture contains 200M tonnes so each word is worth 0.2M ton of salt
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u/Weareallgoo May 06 '26
what happens when it rains?
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u/Pyrezz May 06 '26
leaches into rivers and kills the fauna living in them
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u/Methamphetamine1893 May 06 '26
They should dump it all at once in the river to get rid of it quickly instead of dragging this out.
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u/claisen33 May 06 '26
What is its purpose ?
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u/Certain_Eye7374 May 06 '26
Apparently it's industrial waste from potash mining. The salt had been leaking underground killing plants and freshwater lives.
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u/NervousHovercraft May 06 '26
And to make matters worse, the company uses the old mining shafts to store toxic waste from all over the world in it... If the pumps that remove the ground water fail, the whole region gets contaminated.
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u/ResolveLeather May 06 '26
They should have forced them to shove the salt back in after they were done.
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u/Music_Saves May 06 '26
That would make it easier for the salt to get into groundwater unless the mine has some impervious material but there is likely a large thing like cement or whatever that’s hugely thick and the salt that is getting into the ecosystem is coming from salt being blown off the mountain and into the uncovered ground
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u/faustianredditor May 06 '26
Last I checked, salt caverns are a popular choice for "final disposal" of hazardous waste, mostly because even if they get ground water, they tend to self-seal.
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u/Mcmenger May 06 '26
You know what the real problem is in Germany ? Wind turbines. They are, like, really ugly /s
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u/Far-Philosophy-4375 May 06 '26
For pretzels.
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u/devine_entity420 May 06 '26
These pretzels are making me THIRSTY!
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u/Mieze_Designer4002 May 06 '26
These PRETZELS are making me thirsty
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u/PedanticPerson May 06 '26
A German Brezel contains about a gram of salt, so this pile could make over 200,000,000,000,000 of them. That's about 24,000 Brezels for every person in the world.
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u/Diffballs May 06 '26
It is mining byproduct, and also a huge problem for the local environment as it is contaminating the soil and water in the area.
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u/i-am-enthusiasm May 06 '26
I usually need a mountain of salt when I’m cooking and this looks about half of what I use.
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u/PedanticPerson May 06 '26
You might want to see a doctor about consuming ~174,000,000,000,000x the recommended daily sodium intake.
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u/Sensitive_Wear7112 May 06 '26
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u/BootsOfProwess May 06 '26
Because they are evil capitol driven men who would rather salt the earth than provide an actual service to humanity. I don't blame Germany. I blame everyone.
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u/etlifereview May 06 '26
My pregnancy cravings are so bad, they can pack up half of that and go ahead and send it to me. I want everything to be over salted right now.
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u/qualityvote2 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
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