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Vaccuum Waste Disposal

 Using the vaccuum of space, garbage is sucked into space for disposal
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Basically, you make a really big tube that goes from the ground up into space. You would want to make it farily big around (this would be for use by a city/country, not in your kitchen).

You have an airlock at the bottom. You open the earth side door and dump a few dump trucks of garbage into it. You then close the door and open the one on the other side of the garbage (with a switch of course). The resulting vaccuum from above sucks the garbage out the tube and ejects it into space.

Granted, some people may say this is just making our garbage someone elses problem, but the universe is a big place, no one will ever see it.

The most obvious bug here is that we don't currently have the materials or technology to build a big cylander to space, but I am confident that technology will eventually catch up to good ideas.

—PK, May 16 2002

Vacuum Vacuum http://www.halfbake...dea/Vacuum_20Vacuum
Exactly the same. [phoenix, May 17 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Vacuum trash can http://www.halfbake...acuum_20trash_20can
The miniature version. [phoenix, May 17 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]


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Annotation:







       ‘.BURP.’
—reensure, May 16 2002
   

       Already HalfBaked.   

       Welcome to the HalfBakery. Please search before posting.
—phoenix, May 17 2002
   

       The most obvious bug here is basic physics. Please to read the link kindly provided by phoenix, and also a textbook or two--I see "Physics" by Douglas C. Giancoli waving from the sidelines, and Mssrs. Halliday and Resnick shouting imprecations from the further end of the bookshelf.   

       And a brief message from Scotty: "Ye canna do it, PK, the universe will nae allow it!"
—Dog Ed, May 17 2002
   

       If this would work, we wouldn't have an atmosphere. Nice try.
—pottedstu, May 17 2002
   

       "Vaccuum sapce cylander" is totally new though
—thumbwax, May 17 2002
   

       [Welcome to the HalfBakery. Please search before posting.]   

       Sorry. I looked in the waste disposal category, and didn't see anything like it... I thought I was all right.   

       Also, I don't think the view from the Internationall Space Station would be obstructed. It would surely either achieve escape velocity and break orbit, or be in a decaying orbit and burn up on re-entry.
—PK, May 17 2002
   

       Not a problem. You're new. There is a search function under Idea on the left, near the top of the page.
—phoenix, May 17 2002
   

       AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Hey PK did you know that the tube into space wouldn't work because everything including the earths air supply is held down by GRAVITY. A tube with an opening at the top would just have low air pressure at the top, high pressure at the bottom because earth's gravity is holding down the air.
—jeffman, Jul 27 2003
   

       Well that sucks.
Or not.		   

       There is a way this could work, you could lift the tube up into space and block it at both ends leaving about 20 metres of the bottom end of the tube unblocked.   

       Then put the tube back down and stuff he garbage into the unblobked 20 metres of tube and then unblock both ends, the enormous pressure should propel the garbage into outer space, then the tube could be 'reset'   

       This might even be an economicaly way to send spaceships nito space.   

       Another method of doing this is the other way round, and a method of preserving potential energy.   

       You build a giant tube that goes to the bottom of the pacific ocean and put a piston on the top and squeeze it down slowly.   

       When it reaches the bottom the catch is released and the light piston slowly rises to heaven where the items being levitated are caught by a space station and the piston is slowly chyained back into the ocean.   

       Of coursethe piston would only rise around 36000 feet if you put it in the mariana's trench and also the piston would have to retain it's vacuum centre when on the outside the pressure is 6 tons per square inch.   

       maybe drilling a 15000 feet hole in the ground, filling it with water and placing the piston on top really quickly would substitute
—0_owaffleo_0, Jul 27 2003
   


 

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