The trash epidemic on planet earth is becoming a problem that is difficult to contain.
There is so much trash on our planet that it’s created massive piles in the ocean,
like the pacific garbage patch, that’s so large, it’s the size of a continent.
So what are we going to do with all this trash?
Throw it into a giant incinerator perhaps?
A giant incinerator like…a volcano?
Today, life’s biggest questions asks, what if we threw all our trash into a volcano.
Hello and welcome back to life’s biggest questions, the channel that asks the fundamental
questions of life.
I’m charlotte dobre, thanks for checking out our little channel and if you’re a returning
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around until the end of the video where we respond to some of your comments, even the
mean ones.
The average american creates around 4 and a half pounds of trash every day, and that
amounts to 254.1 million tons total per year.
That’s a lot of trash, and that’s just one country.
We do have methods for disposing of trash that involve incinerators that burn the trash,
but humans create so much garbage, more garbage than we can get rid of.
Disposing of our trash seems like a complete lost cause.
But what if we disposed of our trash by burning it up in a giant volcano?
Well, that presents a lot of problems of its own.
First of all, you can’t just throw your trash into any volcano, it needs to be an
active volcano.
Then once you find an active volcano, you gotta take all your trash there.
Living close to an active volcano is not common, for obvious reasons.
Its dangerous.
And it also needs to be the right kind of active volcano.
Not all volcanoes are ideally shaped or geologically sound to throw trash into.
Most of the active volcanoes on reath are stratovolcanoes like Kilauea, which occasionally
have lava flows and lava lakes.
But plenty of stratovolcanoes also have the tendency to explode when the pressure of hot
gas and magma becomes to great.
Essentially, you absolutely do not want to throw your trash into an explosive volcano
like mount saint Helens when its erupting because you cant get close enough to it without
dying.
That volcano is spewing hot moten rock, ash and gases, not exactly something you want
to get close to at all.
Lets say that you do happen to live close to an ideal active volcano for throwing trash
into, somewhere in Hawaii for example.
A group of researchers in 2002 discovered that throwing cold trash into a large mass
of hot lava creates humungous explosions.
Heres a clip.
That was only a 66 pound bag of trash, which is the amount of trash a family of four makes
in 3 and a half days.
If the amount of trash was a lot more, you have to deal with hot lava flying into the
air.
We know this because we know what happens when rockfalls go into lava lakes in Hawaii.
It causes magma to be sent 280 feet into the air, and the splash hits fences, and damaging
equipment like scientific webcams.
There are a lot of substabces that humans have invented that would float on the surface
of a lava lake, building up over time.
Some of those materials would also sink to the bottom of the volcano.
Volcanoes are not bottomless pits, whatever is inside of the volcano eventually comes
back up.
Those toxic pollutants would then be shot into the surrounding area, contaminating the
environment, soil and groundwater.
Lets also not forget that burning trash is really really bad for the environment and
for life.
Burning anything creates smoke, that smoke goes into the atmosphere, and we breathe it
into our lungs.
There are trash incinerators that are used for disposing trash, but they are strongly
government regulated.
Theres a lot of regulations that make sure the smoke from these incinerators don’t
go into our air.
The smoke has to be filtered out so that major pollutants like carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide
and ozone do not make it into our atmosphere and cause huge problems for the global population.
You cant exactly put a filter on top of an active volcano, so that problem is pretty
much a non starter.
There really aren’t that many active volcanoes that are ideal for throwing trash into on
earth, and it would be a very difficult task to transport all the trash that humans create
to an active volcano somewhere like Hawaii.
Plus when you think about all the environmental problems throwing trash into a volcano would
cause, lets just say that throwing our trash into an active volcano just isn’t an option.
How do you think humans should deal with our trash problem on earth?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comments, for now I’m going to wrap up this video
with some comment features from my last video on this channel, what if all the bees disappeared.
Hobo swaggins – I killed a bee.
I feel terrible now.
Not really tho.
The dude tried to sting me.
Awww poor bee.
Next time trap it with a glass and a piece of paper and set it free.
Grey world – we would be out of honey and honey badgers would be pissed!
Very true.
Honey badgers not fun when they are angry.
Charger – here’s a good question, what if Scylla and Charybdis were real.
It is a good question but we have actually already answered it!
Bubba Williams – charlotte, your voice is so soothing.
Maybe I should do ASMR.
Ronbos raiders money – you sould like you’re very attractive.
Sounds can be deceiving.