4 ms·

We could bury it in a giant pit somewhere without a lot of water running through it (prevent leeching). The actual amount of waste there is isn’t actually that

We could bury it in a giant pit somewhere without a lot of water running through it (prevent leeching). The actual amount of waste there is isn’t actually that high if you were to store it in a giant cube somewhere, the problem is the logistics of that, and the fact that right now it’s everywhere. I can’t find a source right now but I remember something like, if you were to take all the garbage produced by the world and put it in one place it would be a kilometer cubed, or something like that.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
That does not sound right. Just based on pictures like these: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/asia/indias-plague-trash-drowns-bangalore-its-garden-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/asia/indias-plague-... The US alone produces near 300 million tons per year, and a kilometer cube of water weights 1,000 million tons. https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...
- atom_arranger 5y ago
  It may have been per year, I don’t recall. The waste in that photo does not seem very deep, so it’s possibly taking up a lot more area than needed. So if we go by that stat (300 million tons per year) we need 0.3km^3 per year for the United States to store all of its waste. So let’s say we have a hundred years worth, that’s 30km^3. Could we dig a hole 30km^3 somewhere? Not really, we can’t dig that deep generally. If we made this hole (or structure, it could have walls and a net over possibly) 100km by 100km it would need to be 2.7km deep/high to store 100 years of garbage. It would be difficult to do this, and would probably need more area to be feasible, but I would think it would be less of a mess environmentally to try to contain the problem to a few sites like this rather than having smaller poorly contained dumps all over the world.
citiguy 5y ago
The NYTimes magazine [1] ran a piece in 1996 says a 35 square mile landfill, 100 yards deep, will store all US trash until the year 3000. To put that in perspective, that's about 1 tenth of 1 percent of the range land currently available for grazing. I'm sure someone could find a corner in a desert somewhere for such a need if required. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-gar...

lotsofpulp 5y ago

That does not sound right. Just based on pictures like these: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/asia/indias-plague-trash-drowns-bangalore-its-garden-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/asia/indias-plague-... The US alone produces near 300 million tons per year, and a kilometer cube of water weights 1,000 million tons. https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...

atom_arranger 5y ago
It may have been per year, I don’t recall. The waste in that photo does not seem very deep, so it’s possibly taking up a lot more area than needed. So if we go by that stat (300 million tons per year) we need 0.3km^3 per year for the United States to store all of its waste. So let’s say we have a hundred years worth, that’s 30km^3. Could we dig a hole 30km^3 somewhere? Not really, we can’t dig that deep generally. If we made this hole (or structure, it could have walls and a net over possibly) 100km by 100km it would need to be 2.7km deep/high to store 100 years of garbage. It would be difficult to do this, and would probably need more area to be feasible, but I would think it would be less of a mess environmentally to try to contain the problem to a few sites like this rather than having smaller poorly contained dumps all over the world.

citiguy 5y ago

The NYTimes magazine [1] ran a piece in 1996 says a 35 square mile landfill, 100 yards deep, will store all US trash until the year 3000. To put that in perspective, that's about 1 tenth of 1 percent of the range land currently available for grazing. I'm sure someone could find a corner in a desert somewhere for such a need if required. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-gar...