Where To Put Our Trash

[Cobra]

Heres a solution to the world's trash problems. Ship it to the south pole. On a massive scale! All the world's trash should be shipped there.

Why the South Pole? Heres a few reasons:

1. It's the most isolated place on the planet
2. Its too cold to rain, so we don't need to worry about it getting in our drinking water
3. no people or animals live on the South Pole, so they no one will be harmed
4. Antartica is not owned by any country, so it is unlikey there will be any conflicts among any nations over shipping it to this location
5. The tectonic plate that Antarctica sits on does not show any signs of moving, so we wont need to worry about earthquakes moving this stuff around
6. Antartica is the most dead and unproductive area of the planet. Trashing it would be no significant loss.

So how can all this trash be transported without harming the enviroment?

I have a few ideas:

1. solar powered barges
2. solar powered airplanes
3. nuclear powered hovercrafts (nuclear powered hovercrafts would kickass&#33
4. Ship it on Nuclear powered submarines (better than what they're being used for now)
-and I'm sure there are numerous other enviromentally safe ways to transport it that I haven't thought of-

Before any you start saying what a dumbass you think I am, try thinking of a better solution. Can't can you? Thats because there is none. It's so simple, I'm surprised no one else has came up with it.

[Solace]

Wouldn't it be easier to see that the quantity of trash is overwhelming because we consume far more than what we should? Wouldn't be easier to reduce the quantity of shits we buy?

I have one, max two, trash bag a week and one recycle bin.

This is not a solution. I think you are focusion on the wrong issue.

Antartica is not owned by any country, so it is unlikey there will be any conflicts among any nations over shipping it to this location

You forget the territorial claims and the research stations. Antartica is divided like a pie.

3. no people or animals live on the South Pole, so they no one will be harmed

No animals live on the South Pole permantly. Most of them divide their time between the ocean and the land. The trash will aslo affect the waters around and therefore the marine living.

[monkeydust]

a fair idea yet I think it ignores the core problem.

Obviously humans produce waste, the issue for me is that we produce too much waste, disposing of things which otherwise could be used.

I forget their names, but there's a group of people who live entirely on food thrown away, and no they're not hobo's either. In any case, these people use 'garbage' from supermarkets etc, which is perfectly fine to eat but deemed as 'waste'.

[MiDnIgHtMaRaUdEr]

Originally posted by Left@Mar 5 2004, 07:27 PM
a fair idea yet I think it ignores the core problem.

Obviously humans produce waste, the issue for me is that we produce too much waste, disposing of things which otherwise could be used.

I forget their names, but there's a group of people who live entirely on food thrown away, and no they're not hobo's either. In any case, these people use 'garbage' from supermarkets etc, which is perfectly fine to eat but deemed as 'waste'.

That food is given to charity. Shipping all the garbage to the south pole would be extrememly expencive. Not to mention that the ground is hard as rock, assuming you can get through all the ice, so a land fill would be extremely difficult. There are blizzards very often, so work there isn't easy to say the least. Add to that, it isn't very easy to find people who are willing to leave their families and the rest of their lives for that matter, to become arctic garbage men, so in effect, you just created the worst job in the world. You can't just let the garbage sit around, because invariably it will blow into the ocean, defeating the whole purpose of taking it out there in the first place. I say incinerate toxic waste and dump whatever comes out into a landfill, and dump the rest of the garbage in the ocean. BTW I wouldn't recommend solar powered anything in a place like Antarctica.

[redstar2000]

The current "trend" seems to be the idea of burning our trash to generate energy. It has problems.

To safely burn all the crap we throw away, very high temperatures are required...it probably takes almost as much energy to create that much heat as you get out at the other end of the process.

But the other main solution -- landfills -- is a net energy loser.

I dare say we could certainly waste a lot less than we do...but a "high-tech" society is "wasteful" to a far larger extent than pre-capitalist societies. We can't just throw our trash into the streets for roaming pigs to consume. (Most of it is inedible...even by pigs.)

I can see one possible use: dikes.

If the sea-level rises over the next century, major port cities will need to be protected from flooding. Why not use the city's own garbage for that purpose? (True, it will pollute the harbor sea-water...but, believe me, you wouldn't want to enter the waters of a major port anyway.)

...you just created the worst job in the world.

Good line! And true!



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[MiDnIgHtMaRaUdEr]

Who would want dikes made of garbage? No one wants to even have that stuff around. In case you didn't know, garbage smells BAD. Burning garbage isn't supposed to be a good way to produce power, it's supposed to be a less expensive way of getting rid of it. The problem is, is that it all goes into the air. If major port cities need to be protected from flooding, then we would have to use land reclaimation, which is bringing in dirt and dumping it in order to raise the elevation. The problem though it's expensive and that the first couple floors of everything are now basements. Dikes are at best a temporary solution. If it breaks or floods over, you are done, and water that comes in as rain has no way of escaping to the ocean, so it must be pumped out. Not to mention garbage is a TERRIBLE building material.

[Solace]

...it probably takes almost as much energy to create that much heat as you get out at the other end of the process.

Well that’s obvious. Lavoisier’s Law.

But the “concrete” energy, the electricity used might not be the same as the one produced…

The main problem with the trash incinerators is that it creates toxic shits from non-toxic compounds.

[MiDnIgHtMaRaUdEr]

Energy is ALWAYS produced in a reaction that involves the release of heat. Burning anything can almost never be a loosing proposition.

[redstar2000]

I think some of you have mis-understood me.

If you incinerate garbage at very high temperatures, the "toxic compounds" all break down into their components...it's even possible to arrange the process in such a way as to recapture metallic vapors and emit nothing but carbon dioxide and waste heat into the air.

You would not use only garbage to build dikes against rising sea-levels, obviously. It would be mixed with other and more substantial materials...most likely sealed with cement, etc.

Yes, there would be danger of serious flooding if a dike broke...that danger exists now.

Danger is a fact of life no matter what we do or don't do.



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[FatFreeMilk]

Well, I heard talks about sending our trash to another planet. Instead of destroying our enviroment, we could destroy that of another planet! I'm sure that won't happen any time soon though.

[MiDnIgHtMaRaUdEr]

No, not trash, nuclear waste. The cost of sending something to space is something like 500$ an ounce? As for the dikes, if you are going to use garbage to create something that we seriously depend on, then of course there would be no problem at all making buildings and roads out of garbage too, since they are much less important then dikes. Futhermore, a lot of toxic compounds are just as dangerous and reactive in their elemental form, like sulfur and mercury. For example, if you took a sulfur compound and heated it into its element, it would turn into a gas and react in the stratusphere in this equation.
S2 + 2H20 -> 2H2(SO4)
Translation, gaseous sulfur goes up into the atmosphere and reacts with water to for sulfuric acid, coming back down to us in the form of acid rain.
Or perhaps this one...
Carbon, completely harmless, when in a gas state in the atmosphere reacts as such...
2C + N2 + 2H20 -> 2HCN + 02
Translation, vaporize carbon in the atmosphere, (it takes +2000C) and you get cyanide, which for a short time, is extremely dangerous. After that, cyanide will quickly decompose into...
2HCN + 602 -> 2C02 + H2(NO)4
Translation, cyanide, when it decomposes, forms carbon and nitric acid, again coming down as acid rain.

It is best leaving toxic waste as a stable compound that we can contain.

[redstar2000]

As for the dikes, if you are going to use garbage to create something that we seriously depend on, then of course there would be no problem at all making buildings and roads out of garbage too, since they are much less important then dikes.

I don't think buildings would be suitable...but roads are certainly a possibility.

What suggested dikes to me was that fact that New York City has created an entire island of garbage off the coast...if you can make an island out of trash, why couldn't you make a dike out of trash plus cement?

Furthermore, a lot of toxic compounds are just as dangerous and reactive in their elemental form, like sulfur and mercury.

No doubt; which is why I suggested that the burning process be modified to recover metallic vapors before venting into the atmosphere.

It is best leaving toxic waste as a stable compound that we can contain.

Well, as you wish. You understand that means lots and lots of landfills...with who knows what gradually leaking into the groundwater over the decades?!

It's a thorny problem.



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[MiDnIgHtMaRaUdEr]

How are you going to recover sulfur compounds? You can try to get it into other more harmless compounds such as Iron sulfide, but oxygen and hydrogen are more electronegative then iron, so sulfur won't react very well with iron which those elements are around (good luck trying to get hydrogen and oxygen free garbage, much less burning something without oxygen). Other elements, like lead or murcury, are going to be toxic no matter what compound you try and put them in, so burning that is futile. Its best to just leave the carbon in polymer chains in the form of plastic then to burn it and try to get CO2 out of it, (a reaction that requires more oxygen then it does garbage) and almost always getting acids as a product. In a landfill, before they put garbage in it, they lay several thick layers of plastic and cement and dirt before they throw anything in there. In the relatively oxygen deprived enviroment of a landfill, hyrdocarbon compounds decompose into methane (C +2H2 -> CH4), which in turn can be burned for energy (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O) As for the dikes, I don't see what good it will do to contaminate your cement with garbage... Not to mention your dike will SMELL.

[Regicidal Insomniac]

As others have stated, your Antartic "solution" completely ignores the problem - overconsumption and unnecessary waste.

The solutions must come in "fixing" the problem; not shipping it to the south pole.

[MiDnIgHtMaRaUdEr]

Who wants to be an antarctic garbage man? Volunteers anyone?

[FatFreeMilk]

Did you memorize all those chemical equations? Good job! But I don't think all the carbons are accounted for in 2HCN + 602 -> 2C02 + H2(NO)4 . Or am I trippin?

[The Children of the Revolution]

Heres a solution to the world's trash problems. Ship it to the south pole. On a massive scale! All the world's trash should be shipped there.

I am shocked and appalled. This is simply ludicrous. You want to fill up the Antarctic with trash? You have to be kidding. The wilderness is beautiful, unharmed, unspoilt - it should stay this way!

Ship it [waste] on Nuclear powered submarines...

Fool! Nuclear submarines are used for warfare, and with good reason - they are disigned to be manouverable, undectable, powerful and bristling with weaponary... NOT for carrying cargo! This is a waste of energy and effort.

Before any you start saying what a dumbass you think I am, try thinking of a better solution. Can't can you? Thats because there is none. It's so simple, I'm surprised no one else has came up with it.

Dumbass. As many have said, and as I will reiterate, much of the garbage that is created and ends up cluttering up the place can be avoided. Rampant consumerism is wrong.

Recycling should also be encouraged on a huge scale - the Germans have the right idea, what with different coloured bins for different materials and the like... This should be encouraged the world over. However, at present it is often cheaper just to make new tins / cans / glass bottles / plastic products etc, rather than recycling the old ones. This, in my opinion, is no excuse whatsoever. Recycling and lower consumption!

As for what to do with the inevitable waste that IS produced... Well, incinerating is a reasonable. As long as emissions are carefully regulated (to remove toxins) and the plants are situated away from population centres. Landfills should also be dug a lot deeper, sod the cost. Garbage is a part of our (messy) lives, we needn't make it a part of the environment as well...

[MiDnIgHtMaRaUdEr]

Ha, no I didn't memorize then, I'm just in college chem. Believe it or not, some of the things you learn in school can be useful.
2HCN + 6O2 -> 2CO2 + H2(NO)4
(2 carbon here) -> (2 carbon here)
All accounted for.

[FatFreeMilk]

2HCN + 6O2 -> 2CO2 + H2(NO)4
(2 carbon) (4 carbon)

Doesn't the little 2 have to multiply with the big 2? I'm just in high school chemistry, but I think I know my stuff. Or do I?

[The Children of the Revolution]

If I remember anything from my Chemistry days, the 2CO2 means [two "C-O2"]. Which is, as we all know, Carbon Dioxide... The second two concerns only the oxygen.

I think...