Can we send all of Earth's waste into space? Scientists have provided an answer.

Humanity is facing a significant problem: our planet accumulates approximately two billion tons of waste each year, with only a small fraction being recycled. People attempt to bury their trash or dump it into the ocean, but this leads to severe environmental issues. This raises the question: why not take all the waste and send it into space? Scientists have explained that this is not feasible and outlined the reasons, as reported by IFLScience.

Cost of Sending Trash from Earth to Space

Although the cost of space flights has decreased in recent years, they remain quite expensive. Currently, the most affordable launches are those of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. To send 1 kg of payload to low Earth orbit using this rocket, it costs about $1,200.

John Cassidis from the State University of New York at Buffalo believes that from the perspective of high space flight costs, it is impractical to dispose of waste in space. According to the scientist, this would require very powerful rockets and an enormous amount of fuel, making it an extremely costly endeavor.

Atmospheric Pollution Issues

If we were to send a vast amount of waste into space using rockets, it could damage the ozone layer due to the emissions produced by these rockets.

Christopher Meloni from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) states that the number of rocket launches to space is increasing, which in turn raises the amount of pollutants released into the atmosphere.

For instance, the Falcon 9 rocket can emit over 110 tons of carbon dioxide during its launch—and that’s just within the first three minutes of flight. And this is only for a single rocket launch. To send 2 billion tons of waste into orbit, hundreds or even thousands of launches would be required.

Threat to Earth

According to Cassidis, waste from our planet needs to be sent not just into space but to an altitude of at least 35,000 km above Earth's surface. If the waste were to end up in a lower orbit, it could start to orbit our planet along with space debris from defunct satellites and spent rocket stages. Ultimately, this could lead to the waste falling back to Earth and increase the risk of collisions with operational spacecraft in orbit.

This immense amount of waste surrounding Earth could render space travel impossible for humanity, as it would become extremely hazardous.

Could We Send Earth’s Trash to the Moon?

If there is a significant threat to Earth when all our waste ends up in orbit, perhaps it would be better to send it to the Moon or Mars? These celestial bodies lack an ozone layer and do not harbor living organisms (regarding Mars, scientists still hope for the existence of life there), which means they could be turned into a dumping ground. Of course, this disregards the high costs of rocket launches and their negative impact on our atmosphere.

However, Cassidis considers this a very poor idea, as in the long term, humanity may colonize both the Moon and Mars. Therefore, these worlds should not be turned into landfills for Earth’s waste.

What About Sending All the Trash to the Sun?

Cassidis mentions that theoretically, it is possible to collect all the waste from Earth and send it to the Sun to be incinerated. However, this is not feasible in the near future. In any case, such a project would cost trillions of dollars, as it would require numerous launches into space, not to mention all the other issues outlined above.

Thus, for now, the best way to combat waste remains recycling—specifically, increasing the amount of waste that is recycled.