Space Waste
We sometimes like to put our day to day duties to one side and think about some of the more arcane ideas floating around the world of waste disposal. So here it is: why can’t we just strap millions of tonnes of our rubbish to a rocket and send it off into space?
It would remove the need for those eyesore landfill sites that seem to encircle towns up and down the country. Plus surely it would only take a couple of trips a year and we’d be completely green right? You can never fill up space so what’s the issue.
Read on as we delve a little deeper, you’ll be sure to find a few bits and pieces that will really get your brain working overtime.
It Would Take So Much Energy
The first problem we would run into is good old gravity. Keeping everything weighed down so it doesn’t float away sounds like a great idea, but that quickly turns into a big problem when you’re looking to throw an entire town’s waste off into deep space. To even get 1 kg of waste up and out of the Earth’s atmosphere you need such a large amount of energy that you’d be paying off the rocket fuel bill for decades.
Space Is Getting Full
Ok space isn’t bursting by any means, but with satellites commonplace for over 50 years now things are starting to get a little crowded. You wouldn’t want to run the risk of a giant ball of junk knocking out one of the satellites that carries some of the world’s best and biggest entertainment networks. Throwing more and more out of the atmosphere if it doesn’t have to be up there in the first place is only going to make the problem worse. Plus when its up there, how do you ever get it out of the way?
There’s Better Things To Use Our Rockets For
Science and Technology are two uses that are much more interesting for our rockets and astronauts than a spot of intergalactic fly-tipping. Think of the new weird and wonderful things we could discover with all that time and energy. Who knows, we may even discover new science which helps recycle and dispose of material right here on Earth in new ways that benefit everyone.
Don’t Throw Out The Planet
It may sound a little dramatic, but take a minute to think about it. Everything that we make and then throw away comes from the Earth. At one point the raw materials were literally dug out of the ground. So if we ignore the green path of recycling and instead jettison our waste into outer space we are throwing out huge pieces of our own planet with no may to replace them.
Best Stick To Recycling
After giving it some careful thought and research, we have decided that we are best off as a planet if we work together to continue making an effort to recycle and reuse our everyday waste. From plastic bottles and tins which can be easily reused for more food packaging, to food waste which you can turn into a nutritious pile of compost, once you get thinking about ways to help the planet the options really are endless.
