Questions tagged [waste]
This tag should be used for questions revolving around waste, such as how to generate certain amounts of normal or radioactive waste or how to dispose of such waste.
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Is using the Sun as a sort of 'garbage dump' safe?
Is it safe for my civilization to launch rockets full of hazardous material into the Sun? This question applies to all stars, really, not just the sun.
By hazardous materials, I mainly mean ...
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Would gas giants work as waste disposal sites?
In my novel, the many moons of Jupiter and Saturn have been colonized, but I'm running into some logistical problems - namely, waste disposal. My first instinct was to dump it on-moon; while this is ...
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How Do I Contain Hydrogen Gas With Pre-Modern Technology?
I finally figured out how my alchemy system works. The problem is, when my characters perform alchemy, they release loads of hydrogen gas. Why? Well, basically, they will take an object and cause ...
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Are garbage moons possible?
The civilization in question here has colonized the solar system. They have established settlements on most solid planets. Of course, a space-faring people generates plenty of trash, but they have a ...
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What would generate barrels full of toxic (radioactive) liquid waste
I've a setting where some abandoned facility that was run by a joint venture of the military and a high-tech company, has its direct surrounding, outside the facility, littered with barrels full of a ...
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What method of waste disposal would be the most practical for merfolk?
While worldbuilding my merfolk society I've been thinking about what method of waste disposal they would use. I've come up with a few ones that I will describe, and ask how practical they are, and if ...
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How would sensible waste disposal be accomplished for terrestrial creatures in a primitive society? [closed]
Necessary context: Various real animals like birds, foxes and snakes plus fictitious ones like qilins/kirins, gryphons and gloomstalkers (raven-like birds with some minor serpent features) possessing ...
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How can waste be disposed of in an isolated system?
I have in mind a world where a small colony of humans are isolated within a cylindrical force field in a desolate land of clay. With no tools their only option is to dig and, upon finding food (...
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What to do with plastic while living in the wild?
Two people are living in a forest near a recently evacuated city, and they are getting their food and other supplies from there. They turn any natural materials into compost, but what do they do with ...
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Is it possible for a creature to regurgitate all waste products in the form of a pellet?
I am designing a rather sizable (~ 2000 kg) carnivorous predatory species and I want it to expel all the waste it produces in the form of dry, compacted pellets (similar to owl pellets, except of ...
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Do chemicals from nuclear reprocessing waste remain radioactive? Are they flammable?
I'm writing a story about a town whose residents all work at a nuclear reprocessing site. Some teenagers begin to hang out near a small body of water close to the site that they call "the swamp". The ...
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Could a junkyard be provide a better-than-average basis for habitation after the apocalypse? [closed]
So, some people go to an average sized junkyard, after a total nuclear war just ended. They decide to make the junkyard home, and even name it “Junk City”. Cut to a few centuries later and it becomes ...
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Space - the ultimate landfill [closed]
The year is 2060. Plastic waste and other types of solid waste have filled up the planet's landfills. A solution is proposed: load up more than 95% of solid waste on Earth on to a space shuttle and ...
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Would "slave labor" (magic/telekinesis) help with garbage processing?
Here's a sort of offbeat question. My world has "telekinetic magic"; details later, but grossly simplified, it can be thought of as ethical slave labor. Would this be useful for garbage ...
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How might a modern culture wanting to avoid excess trash deal with individually wrapped servings? [closed]
I like cheese. But I'm also absent-minded enough that I'll not think to grab a serving from the refrigerator for days, and lazy enough that I'll sometimes skip a snack so that I don't have to pull out ...
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Why wouldn't my nuclear spaceships eject spent fuel?
In the year 2069AD, a spaceship is transporting hundreds of people in cryogenic sleep to a distant star. The spaceship engine is a nuclear fission reactor and its thruster is based on an ion drive for ...
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International Trash Mountain [closed]
How high would trash mountains be if all the trash was piled into 1 continent like Antarctica?
https://michielkauwatjoe.com/images/works/trash-mountain-michielkauwatjoe.com-large.jpg
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