Comment on Why don't we just gather up all the ocean's trash and all the nonrecyclables, put them in a rocket, and launch it into the sun?

mipadaitu@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

First - The major problem with trash isn’t the getting rid of it part, it’s the gathering it up part. If we could do that, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Second - Launching things on a rocket is kinda dangerous still, there’s a risk the rocket will blow up on launch, scattering the material across a large area. This is a big reason why things like nuclear waste is a problem to transport in general, much less flying it somewhere.

Third - Launching something into the SUN is really hard, it would be easier to send something out of the solar system than back into the sun.
van.physics.illinois.edu/ask/listing/43694

Fourth - Someday we’ll figure out a use for everything, wall-e style. If we dump everything into a centralized landfill, we’ll eventually be able to collect/sort/recycle it into something useful. Throwing it into the sun (or off-planet) would make that stuff unavailable forever.

Finally - Throwing stuff into the sun would actually get rid of it forever, yes. It would be completely decomposed into the atoms it was made from. If we threw ENOUGH heavy metals into the sun, we could actually poison the sun making it not able to fuse hydrogen anymore, but even if we threw the entire earth into the sun, it wouldn’t be enough.

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