Great Pacific Garbage Patch has increased 100 fold since 1970's - Polidicks

If we put it back into the earth couldn't it become useful materials again? We send it to the sun/another planet then we just lost all that useful material. Throw it all into a volcano.

Scoop it up and melt it into a huge block. Then launch that motherfucker straight towards the sun.

[QUOTE=MadDog986;35891082]Does anyone else fear that if we start sending shit to the sun we will somehow fuck that up also?[/QUOTE] There's not a single thing we could do to the sun that would affect it in the slightest. Our technology won't be at that point for millions of years, if ever.

[QUOTE=abananapeel;35891451]If we put it back into the earth couldn't it become useful materials again? We send it to the sun/another planet then we just lost all that useful material. Throw it all into a volcano.[/QUOTE] Or cut out the middle man, the multi-thousand year wait and the toxic gases given off by the plastic incineration and just reuse/recycle half the shit. Although have fun destroying the entire ecosystem trying to get all the plankton sized pieces of pastic, and those are the biggest problems.

[QUOTE=Sanius;35889723]inject the trash into the earth's core [editline]1[/editline] it's the only way[/QUOTE] dump it in to volcanoes

[QUOTE=gamefreek76;35891177]Let it pile up. Soon there will be so much trash that we could walk across the pacific ocean.[/QUOTE] and we run out of sea water that could be used and we use up our lakes and all die of dehydration [editline]9th May 2012[/editline] I know sea water is undrinkable but it can be purified [editline]9th May 2012[/editline] oh and we'd have an overabundance of leftover salt

[QUOTE=CatFodder;35891909]There's not a single thing we could do to the sun that would affect it in the slightest. Our technology won't be at that point for millions of years, if ever.[/QUOTE] Isn't that the same theory people said about our own planet less than 100 years ago? /sarcasm

[QUOTE=Sanius;35889723]inject the trash into the earth's core [editline]1[/editline] it's the only way[/QUOTE] Thats actually been considered, we take the trash and put it in a large container then into a ocean trench, eventually it will be subducted into the mantle. [editline]9th May 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=MR-X;35892485]dump it in to volcanoes[/QUOTE] fumes aren't you know good for the atmosphere

[QUOTE=DesolateGrun;35892758]Thats actually been considered, we take the trash and put it in a large container then into a ocean trench, eventually it will be subducted into the mantle. [/QUOTE] Considering crust plates move at like, less than an inch a year, I think you'd fill up the trench before that eventually came around. It would probably be better to drill a pipe that intercepts a lava flow tunnel (oil drills are capable of reaching many, many miles under the surface so we wouldn't have to actually intercept a path that would flow into a volcano, thus releasing the gasses) and just inject it into that. We're pros at drilling for oil, don't see why we can't drill into volcano paths. Would have to be careful about blow-outs. Don't need a man-made volcano. However the problem with this I think is no matter what, the gasses would eventually be spewed out a volcano.

-snip, FP is giving me problems-

Space elevator? Ocean-floor to the exosphere please.

[QUOTE=OvB;35890083]We need to come up with a harvester type ship that can skim the first 20 feet or so of ocean surface into a holding tank where small particles are filtered out and larger parts are sorted either mechanically or by hand. The harvester must be gentle as there are fish and things that also live up in the top 20 feet of ocean surface. Once inside the ship and sorted out, what can be recycled is melted into ignots and what can't is stored. Stored waste and ignots are transported to a cargo ship and sent back to land to be re-used. I have no idea if this would actually work, but it seems like a good idea to me. We also need to stop the cause of the problem, dumping shit in the ocean. We can do this with strict laws and enforcement in the US, but the hard part will be getting china to stop it. [editline]9th May 2012[/editline] This is really saddening.[/QUOTE] You can keep the fish away by emitting a mild electric charge into the water, it annoys fish and will keep them away.

[video=youtube;TAw5nWJBNrM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAw5nWJBNrM[/video]

[quote]The plastic particles are being vacuumed up by marine life[/quote] hmmm [QUOTE=OvB;35890083]We need to come up with a harvester type ship that can skim the first 20 feet or so of ocean surface into a holding tank where small particles are filtered out and larger parts are sorted either mechanically or by hand. The harvester must be gentle as there are fish and things that also live up in the top 20 feet of ocean surface. Once inside the ship and sorted out, what can be recycled is melted into ignots and what can't is stored. Stored waste and ignots are transported to a cargo ship and sent back to land to be re-used. I have no idea if this would actually work, but it seems like a good idea to me. We also need to stop the cause of the problem, dumping shit in the ocean. We can do this with strict laws and enforcement in the US, but the hard part will be getting china to stop it. [editline]9th May 2012[/editline] This is really saddening.[/QUOTE] ...I've got it. Breed Baleen whales in a lab and then release them around the site. Document a problem and call it a feature! [img]http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/4416/baleenwhalegulp.jpg[/img] Gentle, automated, and likely to collect small particles of plastic easily! And then when they die horrible deaths from toxic exposure, we just burn them away and melt down the plastics into ingots. I see no problems with this plan. None. Zero. Okay maybe killing whales sucks and breeding whales in captivity and finding enough food and containment for giant whales and transporting them to the site and making sure they actually collect the particles and the fact that they border on human levels of sentience. But, you know, other than [I]those[/I] this plan is flawless! :P

Just dump a bunch of bums in the middle of the ocean. They'll collect of the trash.

[QUOTE=gamefreek76;35895687]Just dump a bunch of bums in the middle of the ocean. They'll collect of the trash.[/QUOTE] Then we'll have to deal with the floating cardboard city of bums asking cruise ships for food.

[QUOTE=Lazore;35890400]Last time i checked, the sun is pretty fucking massive compared to earth, hitting it wont really be a problem[/QUOTE] plus there's something called gravity you could economize it and pay fishermen or w/e an economical rate for trash that they could collect with a scoop.

I feel obligated to make a Plastic Beach reference. Seriously though, this is pretty bad. We need a better, less destructive way of disposing of our waste.