What happens if we send trash to space?

There are a couple of problems with the idea of launching garbage into space. Some of this space trash is so low that it can actually re-enter earth’s atmosphere. While most of it will get burned up, the largest pieces could crash into the earth and cause major damage.

Can we launch trash into outer space?

It would be possible to contaminate space with our unwanted junk but it would be extremely costly and unethical to do so. Launching plastic waste into space would be possible but far too costly.

What would happen if we launch our trash into the sun?

With surface temperatures of 5500°C (9,940°F), it could obliterate any type of trash we throw at it, from pesky plastics to nuclear waste. The Sun is about 150 million km (93 million miles) away from Earth, so getting any trash there would be extremely expensive.

Can we just shoot our trash into the sun?

However, even though the Sun is certainly hot enough to melt and ionize any terrestrial matter we send into contact with it, it’s an extraordinarily difficult task to actually send anything, like our garbage, into the Sun. Imagine our planet as it was for the first 4.55 billion years of its existence.

Why can’t we put trash in volcanoes?

So throwing the mass detritus created by human civilization into a volcano isn’t an option. Unfortunately, volcanoes aren’t hot enough to melt nuclear fuel or sterilize medical waste. Temperatures of lava range from 1292 to 2282 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot, but not hot enough.

Why can’t we put trash in space?

There are just two problems: humans produce an enormous amount of garbage; and rocket launches are extremely expensive. Even if engineers could bring down prices by a factor of 10, it would still be thousands of dollars to launch the garbage into space.

Why can’t we burn trash?

Burning household garbage in burn barrels, stoves, and fire pits creates pollution that’s dangerous to human health and contaminates the air, water, and soil.

Why can’t we put plastic in space?

Why don’t we burn trash in lava?

Today, trash incinerators are governed by a web of regulations that make sure the smoke from burning trash doesn’t get into our air (they try to filter out major pollutants like ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, etc). So throwing the mass detritus created by human civilization into a volcano isn’t an option.

Why can’t we burn our trash?

Why don’t we burn our trash?

What happens to our trash when it goes into space?

Organic material slowly rots and breaks down, eventually becoming the soil that the Earth needs for cyclical growth and life. From a philosophical standpoint, chucking our trash into space is essentially passing the buck somewhere else.

Will we ever be able to leave Earth’s orbit?

In 1978, NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler theorized that the accumulation of space debris over time could become so dense, that we could no longer use satellites, or for that matter, leave Earth’s orbit. We would be trapped in a toxic world, surrounded by our own garbage, and we’d decay as well.

Why is Earth’s orbit so dangerous?

Earth’s orbit is already filled with “space junk”, more than 500,000 pieces of debris constantly circle our planet, threatening to damage space stations and spacecraft, due to their rapid speed (~17,000 mph). The more material we send up into space, the more cluttered our orbit becomes, making it more dangerous for every future launch and mission.

What if we sent our trash into the Sun?

What If We Sent Our Trash Into the Sun? Welcome to your new landfill: a giant ball of burning gas that we call the Sun. With surface temperatures of 5500°C (9,940°F), it could obliterate any type of trash we throw at it, from pesky plastics to nuclear waste.