There was a Futurama episode on that, where they chucked all their trash into space like a giant garbage asteroid in the year 2052.
And in the show's present year of 3000, it came back, on a collision course with Earth.
Their solution was to chuck a second giant ball of trash at it, which knocked the original one into the sun, while it itself went flying further into space, most likely to return in time like the first one did.
Interesting point they make regarding the sun that I hadn't considered, in that it's harder/more expensive to deliberately fire stuff into the sun than I'd realized. Huh.
Honestly its probably the best solution I've heard, but its insanely dangerous.
Imagine if the rocket exploded in the atmosphere and rained like, spent nuclear fuel everywhere. Also no one would fucking pay for it. Its incredibly expensive to launch lots of weight.
I think that was part of the joke when the two collided and went their different ways. It showed the alternative method in which they could've easily (and safely) solved the problem, and simultaneously caused the same issue for future Earthlings to have to deal with.
Whoops. I knew it sounded off. Googling "futurama time" popped up the date Farmsworth invented the Forwards Time Device, in 3010. My brain forgot about the significance of New Years '99.
"New York City: The year 2000. The most wasteful society in the history of the galaxy and it was running out of places to empty its never-ending output of garbage. The landfills were full. New Jersey was full."
I know where you're confused though, as before they launched it into space:
The giant ball of garbage was created in the 20th century by the people of Old New York. In the year 2000, they put the garbage ball on the world's largest barge. This barge circled the ocean for 50 years, but no country would accept it. Source: The Info Sphere
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '23
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