Depositing our waste into outer space

[PyramidHead]

Is there any downside to jettisoning our garbage into the vacuum of the cosmos, far enough away from us that it would never find its way back (or, alternatively, shooting it into the sun itself)? Is it possible, even in principle, to "pollute" space in such a way? If the cost of fuel to achieve escape velocity were offset by the savings in waste treatment and processing, would this be a viable strategy?

 

[barbos]

LOL

 

[Mageth]

Not at all practical.

With current technology, it costs @ $10,000 to put a pound of payload into earth orbit. Another metric: about 90% of the mass of a typical rocket is propellant. And that's just into orbit...discounting pushing the mass out of earth's orbit.

In the U.S. alone, @ 220 million tons of waste are generated each year. (About half of that goes into landfills). The average person generates 2-4 pounds of waste a day (let's call it 3 pounds). Launching that one person's waste into space would cost about $30k per day, or about $11 million a year, just to get that bit of waste into orbit.

NASA's (ambitious) goal is to reduce the cost per pound by quite a bit - say to $100 per pound - in the next 50 years. But $100k or so per year per person is still an exorbitantly expensive way to get rid of our waste.

Oh, and there are other obvious problems - in the US alone, we'd have to launch thousands of rockets a day just to make a tiny dent in that 220 million tons.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Cost.

The energy that will lift it to orbit will be sufficient to totally destroy any organics, and they're the main toxic issue.

Anything else, dump it an old salt mine.

 

[fast]

That's what we have oceans and roadsides for, but supposing it was cost-effective, practical, and gave us a high to do it, I wonder what space-conscious environmentalists would say? Or what the aliens would say when they brought it back.

 

[bilby]

Is there any downside to jettisoning our garbage into the vacuum of the cosmos, far enough away from us that it would never find its way back (or, alternatively, shooting it into the sun itself)? Is it possible, even in principle, to "pollute" space in such a way? If the cost of fuel to achieve escape velocity were offset by the savings in waste treatment and processing, would this be a viable strategy?

The cost of fuel could never be offset by the savings in waste treatment and processing. For the cost of launching garbage into the Sun, we could atomise the garbage here on Earth, separate out the individual elements, use them to synthesise brand new goods, and still have some change left over to buy an ice-cream.

 

[RavenSky]

That's what we have oceans and roadsides for, but supposing it was cost-effective, practical, and gave us a high to do it, I wonder what space-conscious environmentalists would say? Or what the aliens would say when they brought it back.

My first thought when reading the OP was imagining the "illegal dumping" citation from intergalactic aliens

Humour aside, the cost to send our trash to space would vastly exceed any benefit. It would be far more cost effective to get serious about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Even trash-to-fuel makes more sense.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's what we have oceans and roadsides for, but supposing it was cost-effective, practical, and gave us a high to do it, I wonder what space-conscious environmentalists would say? Or what the aliens would say when they brought it back.

My first thought when reading the OP was imagining the "illegal dumping" citation from intergalactic aliens

Humour aside, the cost to send our trash to space would vastly exceed any benefit. It would be far more cost effective to get serious about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Even trash-to-fuel makes more sense.

A short story comes to mind. I can't remember much about it but ETs show up on Earth returning Voyager and say "no fine". Then they show a bunch of them and say "fine".

It takes a while to realize they mean a fine for littering.

 

[rjh01]

One possibility is that to have a cannon fire the waste into space. Instead of explosives powering the cannon use magnets to do so. The cost of the electricity would be very small, though the cost of the cannon would be high. Plus you would need to go though the atmosphere without burning up, or slowing down much which might be a problem.

 

[bigfield]

Why the fraggle would we shoot perfectly useful materials into space, where they can never be reused?

The costs of waste recovery will come down as the technology to do so improves. The costs of manufacturing will increase as natural resources are depleted. Sooner or later, we are going to need that garbage and we'll be very sorry if it is thrown into the sun instead.

 

[NobleSavage]

I like how they turn huge landfills in the Midwest into Ski "Resorts". Mount Holly in Michigan comes to mind. I know there are others.

 

[PyramidHead]

What if the waste is restricted to just nuclear waste?

 

[Malintent]

Is there any downside to jettisoning our garbage into the vacuum of the cosmos, far enough away from us that it would never find its way back (or, alternatively, shooting it into the sun itself)? Is it possible, even in principle, to "pollute" space in such a way? If the cost of fuel to achieve escape velocity were offset by the savings in waste treatment and processing, would this be a viable strategy?

No. Not even close. Not even in the realm of reasonable consideration. That would be as efficient as filling your swimming pool with a teaspoon, using water from a pond located a mile away... and getting back and forth from that pond in a helicopter made entirely of spaghetti.

 

[thebeave]

What if the waste is restricted to just nuclear waste?

Watch a video of a rocket blow up on the launch pad and you'll have your answer.

 

[Mageth]

What if the waste is restricted to just nuclear waste?

In addition to the danger of catastrophic failure as noted, even this is not anywhere near being practical due to the volume of waste we're talking about...

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Radioactive-Waste-Management/

On top of the nuclear waste that we've already generated:

Each year, nuclear power generation facilities worldwide produce about 200,000 m³ [cubic meters] of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, and about 10,000 m³ of high-level waste including used fuel designated as waste.

From another source:

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/On-Site-Storage-of-Nuclear-Waste

A typical nuclear power plant in a year generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. The nuclear industry generates a total of about 2,000 - 2,300 metric tons of used fuel per year.

And that's not counting other sources, e.g. medical nuclear waste.

 

[PyramidHead]

Is there any downside to jettisoning our garbage into the vacuum of the cosmos, far enough away from us that it would never find its way back (or, alternatively, shooting it into the sun itself)? Is it possible, even in principle, to "pollute" space in such a way? If the cost of fuel to achieve escape velocity were offset by the savings in waste treatment and processing, would this be a viable strategy?

No. Not even close. Not even in the realm of reasonable consideration. That would be as efficient as filling your swimming pool with a teaspoon, using water from a pond located a mile away... and getting back and forth from that pond in a helicopter made entirely of spaghetti.

Nicely put.

 

[Shake]

I think the only way to do this would be if we were able to build that space elevator ... but then, it would take a long time to get your ROI for that.

 

[Bomb#20]

What if the waste is restricted to just nuclear waste?

The reason reactor fuel stays dangerous for so long after you take it out of the reactor is that there's still so much energy it can't help leaking out. Thinking of it as "waste" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Shooting it into space would turn that conceptual barrier into a literal one. So if we can't figure out how to safely and economically extract the 90+% of its available energy that we're currently abandoning in the so-called "spent" fuel, for gods' sake don't stick it anywhere our more energy-starved and less technologically primitive descendants won't be able to get it back from.

 

[bilby]

In addition to the danger of catastrophic failure as noted, even this is not anywhere near being practical due to the volume of waste we're talking about...

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Radioactive-Waste-Management/

On top of the nuclear waste that we've already generated:

Each year, nuclear power generation facilities worldwide produce about 200,000 m³ [cubic meters] of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, and about 10,000 m³ of high-level waste including used fuel designated as waste.

From another source:

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/On-Site-Storage-of-Nuclear-Waste

A typical nuclear power plant in a year generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. The nuclear industry generates a total of about 2,000 - 2,300 metric tons of used fuel per year.

And that's not counting other sources, e.g. medical nuclear waste.

Only the high level stuff is dangerous enough to need special handling; the rest could safely go to landfill. You wouldn't want to eat it, but then, the same is true of most of what goes to landfill.

The high level stuff is dangerous because it is energetic. We shouldn't be throwing it away; we should be using it.

 

[Mageth]

In addition to the danger of catastrophic failure as noted, even this is not anywhere near being practical due to the volume of waste we're talking about...

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Radioactive-Waste-Management/

On top of the nuclear waste that we've already generated:



From another source:

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/On-Site-Storage-of-Nuclear-Waste

A typical nuclear power plant in a year generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. The nuclear industry generates a total of about 2,000 - 2,300 metric tons of used fuel per year.

And that's not counting other sources, e.g. medical nuclear waste.

Only the high level stuff is dangerous enough to need special handling; the rest could safely go to landfill. You wouldn't want to eat it, but then, the same is true of most of what goes to landfill.

The high level stuff is dangerous because it is energetic. We shouldn't be throwing it away; we should be using it.

Yes, of course, but my point is the prima facie impracticality based on volume/cost. Even if we're just considering the high level stuff, it's not anywhere near practical to boost it into space. There's just too damn much of it. @2000+ tons of used nuclear fuel are generated each year, adding to the tens of thousands of tons already out there. We couldn't make a dent in that using current boosting technology, even if we wanted to. And we're not likely to have the tech to make it practical in the near future.

Other problems/impracticalities/concerns exist as well, of course, as brought up by others on this thread. One is the danger of catastrophic failure in the atmosphere. Another is that it would be a waste to do so - we should either find ways to use it now, or keep it somewhere relatively safe so that it may be recovered/recycled in the future.