plastic back into oil???

[K2e2vin]

A "waste" planet.

 

[TurboMirage]

A "waste" planet.

you mean like our earth, but somewhere else?

 

[Briansol]

i posted this idea up a while back in another thread

collect them up
when you get a reasonable amount of them you launch them into space
aim them on a collision course with the sun
they get burned up in the great fusion reactor in the sky

nice and easy
no bullshit
no worries about contaminating an underground cavern for millions of years
probably cheaper in the long run

easier said than done...

transporting to shuttle.... risks
building a shuttle that can even GET to the sun.... tons of money/fuel
if it blows up mid air ala the challenger, surprise, nuclear fall out

 

[E_SolSi]

easier said than done...

transporting to shuttle.... risks
building a shuttle that can even GET to the sun.... tons of money/fuel
if it blows up mid air ala the challenger, surprise, nuclear fall out

transporting it to the hollowed out mountains that we are using now has the same risks involved
**(actually after looking into this further we are not using Yucca Mountain yet... we are still storing spent fuel rods on site at the reactors)

you dont need an elaborate shuttle... any rocket capable of getting to space will do... in fact most satellites are launched into space on unmanned rockets... once in space its just like any of the other satellites we have sent out to explore our solar system and beyond since the early 1970s (Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, etc) ... only this time it is going to the sun instead... once out of earths gravity it is simply a matter of getting it set on course and giving it one boost to get it on its way... then just minor trim adjustments to stay on course... eventually the suns gravity takes over and reels it in the rest of the way... its not all that fuel intensive

mid air explosions of space bound craft are exceptionally rare...
there would be no nuclear fallout, because there is no nuclear explosion going on... so there is no radioactive dust falling from the atmosphere... all that would be falling from the sky is pieces of the rocket and the payload itself... you encase the nuclear waste payload in a durable shell like they do for warheads... that way if the rocket does blow up mid air you dont even need to worry about small scale radiation exposure... just go pick up the container and send the fucker up again

 

[endlesszeal]

i think the biggest idea i got from that clip is people seeing things as simply "trash." not recyclable or valuable so they toss it where they see fit or dump it. however, with a machine that shows them the direct benefits of recycling and how "easy" it is, it encourages people to do it more and shows value to the "trash." so to me, it seems like an exceptional idea, especially as an educational tool.

while we dont know the exact numbers and how it compares to other methods of coming up with oil, its still important that this is another method. it could possibly lead to other ideas or further processed.

if anyone is taken any pharmaceutical or biochemisty classes, its pretty much about finding something that works and finding a way to make it cheaper ie aspirin. natural in willow bark but it would be prohibitively expensive to extract all aspirin from willow bark so find a way to synthesize it with products and methods available.

 

[UNDR8D]

Invisible is right...

It is waaaaaaay cheaper to convert existing plastics into oil than it is to draw new oil from the ground. Just considering the fact that the petroleum industry carries the highest average salaries of any other industry in the world, there are obviously enormous operating and logistical expenses associated with it.

 

[D16Civic]

Oil consumption in the U.S. alone is 19.5 million barrels a day. Even using the high end of E's figure, the big units are only capable of 50,000 barrels a YEAR. It'll never be more than a drop in the bucket of the big picture.

It's definitely a great way to eliminate trash, and hopefully someone can find a way to make enough of a profit to actually try it on a large scale.

Or maybe someone who doesn't care about money and is solely driven to end "global warming", like Al Gore........

 

[Cashizslick]

i posted this idea up a while back in another thread

collect them up
when you get a reasonable amount of them you launch them into space
aim them on a collision course with the sun
they get burned up in the great fusion reactor in the sky

nice and easy
no bullshit
no worries about contaminating an underground cavern for millions of years
probably cheaper in the long run

The problem Ive heard with the space blasting solution is thus:

q: What happens when a rocket full of radioactive material explodes in our upper atmosphere?

a: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE !!!!


My solution is to do what we currently do with depleted nuclear material - shoot it at muslims in the middle east.