# Can we use a singularity as a garbage disposal? Also, why not dump in the Marianas?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 29, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483 "2010-09-29T16:28:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2010, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/41 "2010-10-02T02:18:21Z")
The serious answer is that even if you could create a black hole in your garbage disposal, you can’t eliminate the mass. You just eliminate the volume. Humans produce billions of tons a year in trash. All you would be doing is concentrating that mass in a single point. Which would then promptly drop through the floor and settle in the Earth’s core.
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### Author:  [@Jamicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamicat)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/42 "2010-10-04T00:00:28Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> > [@Chronos](#):
> >
> > In practice, you’ll only get about 20% efficiency, since most of the Hawking radiation will be in neutrinos, which we can’t harness. It’s probably a better bet to just extract gravitational potential energy from the stuff you’re dropping in: That can be up to 50% efficient, and works for a hole of any size. This, incidentally, is how quasars are powered.
>
> Ah yes, you’re right of course. Another alternative would be to have a rotating black hole, and extract rotational energy via the _ **Penrose process** _; I’m not sure about efficiency in that case, though.
Wouldn’t that make the Black Hole 300% Hotter?
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/43 "2010-10-04T00:27:30Z")
The main reason we don’t dump garbage into the Marianas Trench is the same as the reason we don’t just dump it in the center of Antarctica; there is no reason to.
We have lots and lots and LOTS of room to put our garbage. The world’s not going to end up as a WALL-E covered garbage mess. You could put all the garbage we ever make into a big hole in the Northwest Territories, well away from anything it could pollute that anyone would care about, and have enough room in the hole for all the garbage human beings will make for the next thousand years.
The issue with garbage disposal is cost. Cities usually dump garbage nearby simply because that’s what’s cheap. Sailing it out, sealing it. and dumping it into the Marianas Trench would be expensive, which is why it’s not done.
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### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/44 "2010-10-04T00:53:21Z")
Well gee, can’t we just feed it to the poor?
\
Yup, transportation of garbage half-way around the world would be prohibitively expensive, and that shit floats. It’s not going to sink to the bottom and stay there.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/45 "2010-10-04T01:21:52Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> The main reason we don’t dump garbage into the Marianas Trench is the same as the reason we don’t just dump it in the center of Antarctica; there is no reason to.
>
> We have lots and lots and LOTS of room to put our garbage. The world’s not going to end up as a WALL-E covered garbage mess. You could put all the garbage we ever make into a big hole in the Northwest Territories, well away from anything it could pollute that anyone would care about, and have enough room in the hole for all the garbage human beings will make for the next thousand years.
>
> The issue with garbage disposal is cost. Cities usually dump garbage nearby simply because that’s what’s cheap. Sailing it out, sealing it. and dumping it into the Marianas Trench would be expensive, which is why it’s not done.
Not true.
True before the advent of plastic, probably; glass and paper and wood and metals and animal bones generally aren’t much to worry about. Not true now, though. Plastic nurdles, for instance, are being consumed near the bottom of our food chain and moving their way up. And do you know how long plastic takes to biodegrade? Neither does anyone else.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/46 "2010-10-05T02:12:09Z")
> [@runner pat](#):
>
> > [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#):
> >
> > I assure you, given the gravitational forces involved, the last thing you want to do with a tiny black hole is stick your penis in it. ‘Cause once it passes the event horizon, it ain’t comin’ back out again.
>
> > [@Chronos](#):
> >
> > Yet another addition to the list of “things not to stick it into”
>
> P–e—n----i-----s --------------- e-------n---------s---------u----------e-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I see your Schwarzschild is as big as mine…
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### Author:  [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/47 "2010-10-05T02:44:08Z")
I thought the way to extract energy from a micro black hole was to dump stuff into it, let the matter be accelerated to tremendous speeds as it circles in the accretion disc, and then, POW! Tremendous amounts of X-Rays and Gamma rays, that, presumably, would then heat the crap out of some heat-transfer medium a safe distance from the black hole and go on to make steam and spin turbines, etc.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/48 "2010-10-05T03:36:56Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#):
>
> > [@UncleRojelio](#):
> >
> > Last, and best of all, it will eventually be subducted into the earth’s crust whence it came.
>
> Just ask Taiwan how well that works. Taiwan is essentially made of the top layers of oceanic crust that got pushed up and deformed instead of actually subducting. When you really look at it in detail, subduction zones are actually extremely messy where the two continents meet. The top layers of oceanic sediment and some of the volcanic layers get scraped off and folded into an accretionary wedge and at that point it’s sort of chance whether it ever gets subducted at all, but in any situation anything on the ocean floor or merely buried in sediment won’t end up in the mantle anytime soon (even geologically speaking).
And even if the nuclear waste did get subducted down, it would eventually melt and come back to the surface via lava in volcanic island arcs. That’s right: _radioactive_ volcanoes!
What was that about Godzilla’s origins?
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/49 "2010-10-05T04:03:21Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> Not true.
>
> True before the advent of plastic, probably; glass and paper and wood and metals and animal bones generally aren’t much to worry about. Not true now, though. Plastic nurdles, for instance, are being consumed near the bottom of our food chain and moving their way up. And do you know how long plastic takes to biodegrade? Neither does anyone else.
I haven’t any idea what, specifically, you say is “Not true,” but the simple fact is that there is far, far more room to put our garbage that we could ever possibly use, even if plastic never biodegrades for the rest of eternity.
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### Author:  [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/50 "2010-10-05T04:08:21Z")
> [@Sunspace](#):
>
> That’s right: _radioactive_ volcanoes!
What’s the problem? If anything it’s an improvement - lava currently glows red, in the future it will glow red _and_ green. It’s a Christmas volcano!
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### Author:  [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/51 "2010-10-05T16:40:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Yet another addition to the list of “things not to stick it into”
1.) The crazy.
2.) Black holes.
… … …
3.) Opal.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/52 "2010-10-05T17:34:09Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I thought the way to extract energy from a micro black hole was to dump stuff into it, let the matter be accelerated to tremendous speeds as it circles in the accretion disc, and then, POW! Tremendous amounts of X-Rays and Gamma rays, that, presumably, would then heat the crap out of some heat-transfer medium a safe distance from the black hole and go on to make steam and spin turbines, etc.
Yes, that would be one way to implement getting energy from the gravitational potential energy. I’m not an engineer, though (and the relevant branch of engineering probably doesn’t even exist yet), so I can’t say whether that’s the most practical way of doing it.
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### Author:  [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-use-a-singularity-as-a-garbage-disposal-also-why-not-dump-in-the-marianas/555483/53 "2010-10-06T02:41:59Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> Wouldn’t garbage dumped into the Marianas Trench stay there? If we loaded up cheap garbage barges and sent them out, why not dump shit down there and let the pressure keep it there for thousands of years? We could toss containers of nuclear waste in the trench without fear that anyone can ever get it, and knowing it’s not going to contaminate our groundwater or anything like that. **What’s the problem?**
HEY! I’m planning to be [BURIED THERE!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=520975) Go dump your soiled Huggies and empty KFC buckets somewhere else. :mad:
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