trash garbage rubbish waste because of our obsession with consumerism humans
are the only animal that create non biodegradable waste now with the
population of over 7.5 billion the amount of waste we generate each day is
unprecedented the issue of what to do with our waste is a troubling one as
more and more people consume and then throw away we are filling the earth
which wastes as well as polluting our oceans with it but what if there is an
answer to our problem and what if that answer lay beyond the stratosphere hello
and welcome back to the life's biggest questions the channel that looks to
answer all manner of queries although I'll let you in on a little secret the
science and the space ones are my favorites
I'm your host Rebecca forget and stay I'm asking what if we shot our trash
into space before we get into this video I want to ask you guys what ways you're
working to reduce your waste I have a pack of reusable straws and I have a
reusable coffee mug and I do try and keep my water bottle to fill up again in
the future rather than buying new ones but I know that there is still a lot
more that I can do do let me know your efforts in the comments section down
below and a gold star for each and every one of you also please do like this
video and share with a friends and stick around to the end where I'll be reading
some comments from a previous one trash in space space junk things are going to
get messy but firstly let me explain why we would even you know wanna fill space
with diapers and plastic bottles and other such junk at the moment humans
generate around three and a half million tons of waste every day but by the end
of the century in 80 years time it is estimated that humans will be pumping
out 11 million tons of trash a day where will it end the biggest offender is
plastic invented in 1907 to this day 9 billion tons of plastic have been
produced but under 10% has ever been recycled which means that single-use
plastics are ending up both in landfill and in our oceans on land plant vil is
causing space issues plus burying trash causes both air and water pollution
even the simple act of transporting the trash to landfill sites causes pollution
and B accord missions that aside current trends suggests that by 2050 they'll
actually be more plastic in the ocean by weight than real marine life not only is
it killing our marine life by being there it's also out numbering it so as
you can see waste is a problem so what would happen if we just straight-up
jettisoned our trash troubs with that not solve all of our problems well get
ready because the short answer is no listen catapulting our bin bags into the
Sun seems like absolute loss but that isn't really how it works to remove
trash from our planet we would need to do so via the only current available
means of removing something from Earth a rocket the only thing is Rockets our
premium rate expensive and actually can't really hold that much right now
our best available Rockets can carry 11 tons of weight at a time now bearing in
mind by the end of the century we'll be producing a million times that in one
day like I mean are we seriously going to be sending a million Rockets a day
into space because mate that is expensive launching one rocket right now
takes months if not years of preparation and cost circa 100 million dollars so
what is 100 million times a million back whatever that is is how much we'd have
to spend a day because ah can we really afford to do that every single day by
the end of the century even now could we afford to send 333,000 rockets into
space a day no of course not you're crazy
the CIA calculates that there is around 80 trillion dollars of broad money in
the world right now and a video on the channel bright side puts a yearly cost
of trash disposal in space at 1.6 quadrillion so let's just say we
absolutely do not have enough money and leave
there oh wait you don't want to leave it there you want to pretend that we could
just use the cheat code and Sims and just like magic the money here
well then club pause yes or rosebud or whatever the magic word is these days
you've got a listen babe if you want to jettison your junk the amount of space
needed for all of the rockets to launch would be bigger than the entirety of the
United States so you know also with a rising population who has space for this
why would we even build a trash continent
it just isn't feasible also how would everyone get their trash into one place
or for there be several trash rocket launch sites across the world
whatever the setup it would become the biggest industry and employer in the
world to from the building of a rocket to the launch can you imagine the people
power needed and would these trash rockets be manned because what a job
some videos out there have asked why we don't dump our trash into the Sun but
the answer is we just can't get it there our Rockets would simply melt so sure an
unmanned rocket to the Sun wicked maybe just point and shoot
but then poof there goes our Rockets good job we have loads of money to build
new ones oh wait well so what about a rocket popping up high enough to take
the trash off the earth but not so high that it becomes unfeasible she says
whilst imagining something wholly unfeasible in essence well that would
create a big problem you see we already do have a small
amount of trash in space and is causing massive issues a lot of our old
satellites are stuck in space and causing havoc to our new satellites
that's straight up breaking them also the International Space Station could
get pretty wrecked which would be a massive step back for research and could
even kill the astronauts up there do we want blood on our hands I do not think
so some of our junk may float away and that's the ideal outcome for us anyway
but a lot of it may fall back down to earth while a lot would burn up on
re-entry that would release harmful chemicals and once again alev
million tonnes a day that's a lot of poisonous gas plus some larger chunks
would fall back down to earth and then you may literally be killed by flaming
plastic which again would be awful and again would be more blood on our hands
okay so the return to sender issue sounds pretty awful can we just dump our
trash on the moon I mean sure if you wanted to spend all of our money on
something pointless and unsustainable then yeah
but as we know the moon has low gravity and no atmosphere trash likely would
never reach escape velocity and float away but it would make landing a rocket
on the moon pretty hard as time went on garbage moon bug garbage humans also
think about this imagine we did invent trash rockets that could get far enough
away from Earth to ditch our litter what would happen then what if someone or
something else finds our litter and isn't happy how would you feel if your
neighbors started dumping their waste on the edge of your property you'd probably
be annoyed right and to be honest I can't blame you we don't know if there's
any life out there right now odds are yes and well we don't want to
be paying the intergalactic fine for littering do we honestly perhaps not
look let me draw you to what Bill Nye had to say earth is a closed system we
cannot leave the earth there's no place to go there's no place to throw your
trash that's right the earth is a closed system we need to find a way to deal
with our problem burying it hasn't worked and neither would spearing it
into space time Bill Nyes motto is reduce recycle reuse rethink and he is
right right now on average across the world people throw away 99% of things
that they have bought within the first six months of buying it and that simply
isn't acceptable but Scandinavian countries notably Sweden are pioneering
the way forward by converting waste into energy bill nye predicts that we will
mine trash in the future for useful materials and
some are even experimenting with the idea of using trash as building
materials we could be building skyscrapers are things that we've thrown
away and again we can all help by living more sustainably now I did a video on
inform overload that you should definitely check out this was about Thai
stores using banana leaves as packaging instead of plastic and that's a good
start right once again though I want to ask you guys what you are doing for the
cause I know that I could be doing more and I will try and better educate myself
I don't want those aliens coming after me because of my space junk before I
leave I just want to read some comments from what if an asteroid destroyed the
moon and then I guess we'd be glad that we didn't fill it with junk and trash
right Steven Matthews says they will have discovered where we're hiding all
the cheese uh oh my god if only cheese oh my gosh it made me think about cheese
I'm really hungry jeez Joshua Neil said ancient civilizations worship the moon
little fun fact for everyone that's true and to be honest I feel like I worship
the moon a little bit I love that moon good money said Rebecca just served Eric
life's biggest mic drop BAM sorry Eric Kevin even said what if
we downloaded our minds onto computers I mean that sounds like a very very good
question and perhaps something that we could tackle in the future so guys that
is all we have time for that if you like this video please do leave a thumbs up
and share with a friend you can even let me know what you think will solve the
trash problem for now though I'm your host Rebecca Folgate I will catch you in
the next video but until then please do stay curious
stay alert and indeed never ever stop questioning