Send the trash to the sun?

Question

just sennd all the trash to the sun. it would desenigrate. here's how. make a pod and put all the trash in it. connect it to a space ship and take that to the moon then disconnect the pod and put in the cordinates fo the sun then send it there. the shuttle will return safely with all the people inside and the trash will be gone!

Answer 1

Just to give you an example, for the Moonlandings, the Saturn5 Rocket needed approx 3000t of fuel to bring 50t to the moon.

Not really an economic way to deal with trash, isnt it?

Answer 2

yeah thats a very good idea, but it'll be almost impossible to send millions of tons of it in 1 vehacle we would need something economicly impossible to send it there.. for now it's just a dream

Answer 3

Not just the trash, but also the resources we used to produce the trash will be gone, making the planet much lighter and resource-starving than it is now :)

Remember that by throwing trash off the planet, you're also throwing mass and energy off the planet. Trash is part of the 'eco'system. We convert natural resources (e.g. oil) in products (e.g. plastic), which we (more specifically: mainly the spoiled, dumb part of the Western world) throw away after we're done using it. You choose to get it off the planet, I say we keep it on the planet, just like oil was part of the planet.

Answer 4

are you going to pay for this little trip?

Answer 5

Problem is: The pods would most likely cost extreme amounts of money to make. Our government is at no point to spend that much money on that subject. We already owe tons and TONS of money to China.

Answer 6

That would work, but think how expensive that would be?

Think how already expensive it is to have a safe and scheduled launch?

Answer 7

Only if you are prepared to pay millions of dollars to empty your garbage can.  Pretty expensive way to do it, if you ask me!

Answer 8

It can actually be used for fuel here.

Answer 9

you should probably win the nobel prize...except for the fact that that would cost tons of money and no one would be willing to fund it just to get a little trash of the planet

Answer 10

gas is expensive lol

Answer 11

Unfortunately with current technology it cost about $10,000/pound to place something in orbit (it cost more to get something on a trajectory to the Sun). So it's just not feasible. If we had a low cost means of getting into space, such as a space elevator, the idea might have some merit. However consider this. Anything sent into the Sun (or deep space) is a resource lost to the Earth forever. I am not a tree-hugger or anything, but eventually we will run out of resources to throw away. Everything we put in landfills will eventually be naturally recycled, but it may take thousands if not millions of years. There are tons of things like plastics, metal, paper, wood, concrete, petrochemical products (the list goes on) that can be easily recycled and should be. We do live on a planet of finite resources. Even if we did have cheap and safe access to space, the only things I would burn up in the Sun would be extremely toxic chemicals or dangerous radioactive materials.

Answer 12

it would work but it currently  costs an objects weight in gold to put it into space

so recycling might be a cheaper way of dealing with refuse

Answer 13

Great idea. As soon as they find a cheap way to get it there we can start.

Answer 14

good idea, except, you have to have enough lift (fuel) for the space ship to get off the ground, and even if you could get the ship off the ground, you would be burning thousands of gallons of rocket fuel every time we took out the trash

Answer 15

riiight.

Answer 16

to expensive

Answer 17

You obviously haven't thought this through thoroughly. Do you have any idea how many TONS of trash are generated every day in just one small town? Any idea of how many thousands of these "pods" would be needed? Any idea of the cost of putting ONE POUND of something in orbit?

Any idea how to spell disintegrate?

The answer to all of the foregoing is "no".

Answer 18

Waay to expensive with technology today. But good idea.