I get that you could not possibly get rid of all of it, but wouldn’t it make sense to send a trash rocket into the abyss?
In: Engineering
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For a scale that would matter even if possible. Would start to make me worry that we’re permanently removing the only resources we have on our planet
This has been asked and answered here multiple time. The answer is cost. How much money it takes to lift a ton of garbage into space. No matter what you want to send one pound is one pound and cost approx $ 1500 to send to orbit. Once there you still need to send it to wherever. And that costs even more.
one day in the future, it will be viable digging up dumps to retrieve plastic waste to convert to oil..
What if we built a giant slingshot and shot it into outer space?
Because all plastics are recyclable. It’s just expensive. However its cheaper than using current rocket technology.
The problem with plastic isn’t with having it on the planet, it’s with just collecting it up and disposing of it properly in the first place so it stays out of the waterways and most of the environment.
We can’t even collectively get it all together and burry it properly on Earth which is literally dirt cheap. If we could gather it all up properly to even think about sending it into space that would already solve 99% of the problem if we just turned around and disposed of it in the way we already can without worrying about the impractical expenses of getting it to space.
Cost per ton to launch to geosynchronous transfer orbit: **$11.3 million**
Global yearly plastic waste production: **300 million tons**
Total global wealth: **$361 trillion**
Cost to launch yearly global plastic waste production to space: **$3390 trillion**
**Conclusion:**
It would not make sense to spend 9.4 times all the wealth that exists on the planet created over the average lifetime to launch a single year’s worth of plastic waste into space.
Although relatively rare some launches undergo “unscheduled rapid dissasembly” as Mr Musk recently pointed out. Imagine spreading the cargo across the globe if it were toxic.
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