There is No "Away"

[forsyth]

In a lot of RPGs, WoW for instance, when you throw something away, it disappears from your inventory and the world, for good.

It's not like that in the real world. We're all here on the bottom of this thin ocean of air surrounding a ball of molten rock. You're breathing the same oxygen the dinosaurs did. The carbon in that burger you ate could be the same as Abe Lincoln ate.

So what happens when you throw something away? Most of the time, it gets driven off to somewhere, and then tossed on a pile with a lot of other things people didn't want or need any more. Eventually, it all gets covered with plastic and buried under dirt. It's still there. It doesn't disappear.

The Earth is largely a closed system. There is no "away" where we can just throw things and forget about them. Solid, liquid, or gas, it's still gonna be here with us.

Comments

[amazingadrian.livejournal.com]

The Earth is indeed a closed system. I've often wondered about taking the excess outside of the system; IE, into space.

But then I wonder...That plastic, carbon, ect. has been part of the Earth for millenia. If we take it out of the system entirely...what would happen later on? Would we start finding gaps in the Earth's supply? Sure, it's a process that takes thousands of years, but you gotta wonder about it...

I think sooner or later, someone will develop something that will atomize all that garbage back into its base components. Whatever it is will have to run clean. It may not happen during our lifetime, but someday.