Our Sun as a "trash incinerator"?

We have all these plastic bags and radioactive waste, and various other goods that can't be recycled.

What would happen if we just sent them into the Sun?

I understand the cost (and consequences of accidents) but if that didn't matter, would there be any adverse side effects of launching any garbage or waste material into the Sun?

It seems a waste to leave it polluting our planet, when the Sun could reduce it to a plasma.

You said it yourself, the risk of an accident is too high. No space launch is foolproof. If you tried to send say a load of plutonium into the sun and it explodes on launch you have a disaster of huge perportions.

Even if you could eliminate an accident risk, the costs of a space shot and the amount of pollution those launch itself creates would offset the benifits

But would there ever be any danger in actually having our waste hit the Sun?

Our garbage would be insignificant in size to the Sun, but would it affect the chemistry of it?

Originally posted by Xar Ke Zeth
But would there ever be any danger in actually having our waste hit the Sun?

Our garbage would be insignificant in size to the Sun, but would it affect the chemistry of it?

The sun would be like an giant incinerator and so I doubt we could send enuf stuff to effect it whatsoever.

Everything can be recycled.

We just may not know how yet. And I wouldnt risk some weird phenomena reaction the sun may have by hurtling our trash into it, like it explodes or dies.

Besides we need our resources, we cant spread it out in space. We need every bit of it.

Hmm, I thought it wouldn't. So the only reason why we don't do it is for expensive cost and what might happen if there's an accident, and...

Originally posted by YaYo
Everything can be recycled.

We just may not know how yet. And I wouldnt risk some weird phenomena reaction the sun may have by hurtling our trash into it, like it explodes or dies.

Besides we need our resources, we cant spread it out in space. We need every bit of it.

That's what I was thinking of myself. If we keep grabbing resources from our Planet, and sending it away into space when it's no longer useful, would further increase the need to further deplete our planet's resources.

Originally posted by YaYo
Everything can be recycled.

We just may not know how yet. And I wouldnt risk some weird phenomena reaction the sun may have by hurtling our trash into it, like it explodes or dies.

Besides we need our resources, we cant spread it out in space. We need every bit of it.

No, the sun is gigantic, there is nothing man kind can do to alter the sun with any significance.

Why the sun? It would be easier to just hurl this radioactive waste at a neighboring planet such as Venus.

Forgetting the danger of an accident the cost would be prohibitive. Think of a load the size of what a normal garbage truck holds. To send a load that size to the sun would surely cost in the area of $100 million+. The amount of energy it would take would most likely be a greater hazard to the environment.

What about the fumes that the burning material would create?
Would there even be fumes?
Could these fumes affect a nearby planet and cause a chain reaction?

i dont think you guys understand the scale of the sun compared to the earth.

"The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system. It is the largest object and contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths." source

do you really think our puny little caches of nuclear waste would do anything to sol?

i think we should get rid of all the space debris floating around in orbit. perhaps use some giant magnet on the back of unmanned craft or other similar device.

and i suppose we could get rid of the earths non-toxic waste. perhaps through inexpensive soyuz type, workhorse garbage truck spacecraft? also unmanned, unless of course we use it as a new execution method :p

I dont think you could prove that it wouldnt cause a chain reaction potentially and go apenutty.

And I dont want anyone making any decisions of wether it would or it wouldnt.

[edit on 4-9-2005 by YaYo]

Yes, this is probly a great idea, except that the costs and resources needed to send our tranh into orbit, not to metion with the Delta ve to collied withthe sun prohibits such endevors.

One problem with recyling is that in order for it to work the production of new materials needs to be lower the then cost to recycle it. only metals, glass, have such a high level of cost effectivness to make it worthwhile. Paper is naturally recylcble as long as you get the inks and dyes out. But it is still much cheaper to make plastic then it is to receyle it, and that is where a lot of our consumable trash is now.

Wouldnt it be dangerous to add more mass to the sun and possibly have it become unbalanced and prematurely nova?

Adding a couple of tons to the 1,990,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons the Sun already possesses (link) shouldn't pose a problem.

The 2 things that keep this from being realistic are:

1. cost (ridiculously high)
2. risk of accident

The cost would be far more than reasonable (MILLIONS of dollars)...not to mention that if we're talking about nuclear waste, the risk of accident is too high to ignore. Such an accident could be catastrophic.

And why not just send it into deep space? Why the Sun?

Because the original poster is a crazy nutcase and he wants to destroy our sun! He has tunnel vision and didnt think of just shooting it at pluto.

[edit on 4-9-2005 by YaYo]

What if the "space ship" mold before event be close enough to send the trash to the sun?

i dont mind to send it into deep space but lets say we possibly neighbor an advanced space farring civilization, I dont think they will appreciate our garbage being floated out there

It wouldn't even reach the sun,the sheer heat as it gets close to the sun would litterally burn away the garbage and the hauler

Originally posted by WolfofWar
It wouldn't even reach the sun,the sheer heat as it gets close to the sun would litterally burn away the garbage and the hauler

This is true but this still costs way too much

The reasons I only considered the Sun, or close proximity to it instead of another planet or outer space is as follows respectively:

1. I wouldn't want to infect another planet in our solar system with our societies crap, to be honest.
2. It'll just be floating around.

Destroying it would remove it from existence once and for all, with no side effects.

And YaYo, that basically sums it up.

[edit on 5/9/05 by Xar Ke Zeth]