We should send all our rubbish to Venus or to the sun. Let it burn up in them

AMKC

Well good idea or not? If course there might be alien life on Venus now so might not be allowed send our rubbish there if there is. Maybe the weird microbial alien life on it would like our Earth rubbish do.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

AMKC wrote: »

Well good idea or not? If course there might be alien life on Venus now so might not be allowed send our rubbish there if there is. Maybe the weird microbial alien life on it would like our Earth rubbish do.

I think they did this in an episode of Red Dwarf...? Might have been something else though. Can't remember how it worked out. Probbaly not well.

Potential-Monke

The sun would be the better bet, not a hope there's life on it, and if there is, well, rubbish won't be the top of the worries we may have. Problem is, it's a one way trip, and sending stuff to space is not cheap. It would take a healthy estimate of 19 years at 600mph to get there. The Solar Orbitor will reach speeds of 430000 mph, and that will still take about 2 years and costs €300,000,000 for getting 200kg of mass into space to reach those speeds. Heavier loads, longer flight time, more costs. Not worth it.

Yet.

AndyBoBandy

I think it’s eventually where we’ll send our nuclear waste (to the Sun that is), but for this to happen the launch procedure will have to be 100% reliable. Not 99.99999999% reliable, but 100%

Asdfgh2020

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

I think it’s eventually where we’ll send our nuclear waste (to the Sun that is), but for this to happen the launch procedure will have to be 100% reliable. Not 99.99999999% reliable, but 100%

How about the moon....hell of a lot closer and definitely no life there....the ‘sea of tranquility’ looks like a nice big hole that could be filled.....!!

Wanderer78

Incineration on this planet is probably a better idea

Irish_peppa

More economical to do this :mad:

Wanderer78

Irish_peppa wrote:

More economical to do this

'Dilution is the solution to pollution'

Trouser Snake

There are a fair few Air Max lying idle, load them up with rubbish and compel Elon Musk to Max and Starlink alternate space launches.
He gets rid of our rubbish and delivers broadband to the masses, its a win/win.

Keyzer

Good idea, lets destroy another planet with our crap instead of taking responsibility for our actions and doing something constructive about it.

Blue sky thinking...

Tony EH

Asdfgh2020 wrote: »

How about the moon....hell of a lot closer and definitely no life there....the ‘sea of tranquility’ looks like a nice big hole that could be filled.....!!

Didn't work out too well in the year 1999.

Wanderer78

Trouser Snake wrote: »

There are a fair few Air Max lying idle, load them up with rubbish and compel Elon Musk to Max and Starlink alternate space launches.
He gets rid of our rubbish and delivers broadband to the masses, its a win/win.

hes doing a good job of adding to the junk already up there!

jim o doom

Pretty expensive launching rockets into space, in fuel, man hours and equipment. Spending that much money to launch a single rocket of rubbish when we would need to launch thousands of rockets up with it every year, it's never going to be economical until a much more efficient method of escaping Earth's gravity is invented, if it ever actually is.

seamus

The amount of energy required to launch rubbish into orbit is considerably larger than just burning it. A Falcon 9 has a payload of 22 tonnes and each launch releases about 350 tonnes of CO2. Where just burning the 22 tonnes will release about 22 tonnes of CO2 (give or take)

Even if you were to strip down the rocket so it could carry more, you're never going to bridge that gap that makes a launch 16 times more expensive than burning.

Unless we come up with a more efficient method of launching rockets (nothing is on the horizon), or other methods of getting things into orbit - like a skyhook - then recycling, composting and incineration are the only way forward.

upupup

Maybe that's how life on earth began.Rubbish dumped into space from another civilization millions of years ago.We may be the rats of the universe!

_Brian

Bad enough we’re treating our own planet like a rubbish tip.

We’ve no right to be spreading it about the rest of the solar system.

Obviously the cost per kg to break earth gravity would be phenomenal so it’s a non runner.

AndyBoBandy

_Brian wrote: »

Obviously the cost per kg to break earth gravity would be phenomenal so it’s a non runner.

worth it for the most harmful of rubbish, like nuclear waste.

And there'd be no 'spreading it' if it ended up in the sun, it would merely be vaporised into nothing.

gimli2112

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

I think it’s eventually where we’ll send our nuclear waste (to the Sun that is), but for this to happen the launch procedure will have to be 100% reliable. Not 99.99999999% reliable, but 100%

Nuking the Sun doesn't sound very safe. What scientist school did you go to?

Wanderer78

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

worth it for the most harmful of rubbish, like nuclear waste.

And there'd be no 'spreading it' if it ended up in the sun, it would merely be vaporised into nothing.

...or would we be creating an even bigger problem for future generations, baring in mind, nuclear power generation is slowly being wound down, and apparently modern nuclear tech produces less waste than before

AndyBoBandy

gimli2112 wrote: »

Nuking the Sun doesn't sound very safe. What scientist school did you go to?

Wanderer78 wrote: »

...or would we be creating an even bigger problem for future generations

Sending all the nuclear fuel we have ever used, and will use in future into the sun would be the equivalent of pi$$ing into the Atlantic Ocean after drinking 7 pints of water.

The problem is getting it safely off the earth first, that's where the risk is.....

cj maxx

It’s cheaper to recycle, ie send it to the Far East to be burned, buried.

jim o doom

seamus wrote: »

Unless we come up with a more efficient method of launching rockets (nothing is on the horizon), or other methods of getting things into orbit - like a skyhook - then recycling, composting and incineration are the only way forward.

I seem to be remember being sent looking for a skyhook when I was a young lad in my first job :pac:

Gregor Samsa

Wanderer78 wrote: »

...or would we be creating an even bigger problem for future generations

Even if the entire Earth was made of spent nuclear fuel, sending it into the Sun - which is one giant fusion reactor itself - wouldn't pose any danger to anyone. It's fookin massive.

The problem, as noted already, is that it's incredibly difficult, expensive and environmentally damaging to get stuff off earth and into space. Doing so for any waste on earth - nuclear or not - would be a total waste of resources for absolutely no benefit. If we were to get to the point of having a power source efficient enough to allow it, we would by definition have stopped using (fission) nuclear energy long before we had the rockets, and all our other energy issues would be solved.

Plus there's the risk of something going wrong with the launch - although it should be noted that most space probes already contain plutonium. The Curiosity rover which was sent to Mars, contains roughly 4.5 kg of plutonium-238 in its batteries.

Earthhorse

seamus wrote: »

Unless we come up with a more efficient method of launching rockets (nothing is on the horizon), or other methods of getting things into orbit - like a skyhook - then recycling, composting and incineration are the only way forward.

Not only that but a safer way too. Not all rockets into space make it into space.

Also, you've left our reuse. This is possibly the most underutilised of our tools in combating waste. It amazes me that we just through away bottles and containers that could be reused by the companies that made them in the first place.

Hopefully, refilling stations in supermarkets for certain goods will reach these isles sooner rather than later.

1o059k7ewrqj3n

We could build a space elevator - much cheaper than rocket launching into space.

I say we just keep burying it under ground. Nobody will find it.

AMKC

Steyr 556 wrote: »

We could build a space elevator - much cheaper than rocket launching into space.

I say we just keep burying it under ground. Nobody will find it.

That's where you are wrong. Either future generations in a hundred or thousands of years time will find it or Aliens will and neither I would say will be impressed by it.
Ok so some great points made here by posters that space waste company would just not be viable or good for the planet as it would just make the problem worse. So I guess we just have to continue with the 3 Rs of reduce, reuse and recycle if we want the planet to survive for future generations.

s1ippy

Any reason we can't chuck it in a volcano?

Gregor Samsa

s1ippy wrote: »

Any reason we can't chuck it in a volcano?

Anything that goes into a volcano comes back out as soot, ash and gas. All you'd be doing it turning solid waste into atmospheric waste - which is much more dangerous and virtually impossible to clean up. Remember when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland shut down European airspace for almost a month in 2010? You'd have that on a constant basis globally. And that's not to mention the effects of the chemical pollution it would cause.

Chucking stuff into volcanoes is fine for the odd human sacrifice to appease the gods, they're not suitable for industrial and municipal waste disposal.

Hamsterchops

AMKC wrote: »

We should send all our rubbish to Venus or to the sun. Let it burn up in them.

Well good idea or not? If course there might be alien life on Venus now so might not be allowed send our rubbish there if there is. Maybe the weird microbial alien life on it would like our Earth rubbish do.

Or we could drill a really deep rubbish chute into our own planet, deep enough so that the rubbish would spontaneously combust as it reached the Earth's core

AllForIt

I don't see why you would have to send it anywhere specific except into space.

banie01

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Or we could drill a really deep rubbish chute into our own planet, deep enough so that the rubbish would spontaneously combust as it reached the Earth's core

Launch it, and leave it re-enter?!