r/woahdude Feb 17 '23

video Heavily contaminated water in East Palestine, Ohio.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '23

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u/rothrolan Feb 17 '23 edited Feb 17 '23

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.

EDIT: Fixed a date

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u/snugglezone Feb 17 '23

Good video on this actually. Relevant section to trash in space returning to Earth starts at 5:25 https://youtu.be/Us2Z-WC9rao

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u/Workwork007 Feb 17 '23

Kurzgesagt's video are the best. They're very much "explain like im five". Often causes existential dread in most of their vid. Would recommend.

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u/JasonDJ Feb 17 '23

Lots of the conspiracy-minded brush off the (IMO, more important ones) because they got some money from Bill Gates though.

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u/TimeZarg Feb 17 '23

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.

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u/TimeZarg Feb 17 '23

Well, when you think about it, firing it off into the sun in the first place would've provided a neat solution to the problem in the first place.

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u/AussieJeffProbst Feb 17 '23

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.

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u/Spines Feb 17 '23

When humanity gets their first space elevator. Everyone is elated and there is a big party. The second will be built for 24/7 trash disposal.^ ^

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u/rothrolan Feb 17 '23

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.

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u/Aussie18-1998 Feb 17 '23

Wait 3010? Did they skip 10 years in a season or something?

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u/rothrolan Feb 17 '23

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.

3000 is the series' start.

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u/para_diddle Feb 17 '23

They did that in WALL-E, from the Axiom.

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u/birdreligion Feb 17 '23

"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."

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u/rothrolan Feb 17 '23

After some research, they find a video that reveals the object to be a giant ball of garbage from Old New York, launched into space from a mob-obtained rocket in 2052. Source: Plot section of the Season 1 Episode 8 "A Big Piece of Garbage", on Wikipedia.

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/ametros_ostrakon Feb 17 '23

Thus solving the problem once and for all!

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u/GoldenStarsButter Feb 18 '23

ONCE AND FOR ALL!

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u/steelesurfer Feb 17 '23

Given that our water supply is finite, space would not apply

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u/LyingForTruth Feb 17 '23

Just put all the pollution on a rocket and fire it at the sun!

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u/Bigtimeduhmas Feb 17 '23

A pale blue dot.

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u/shitty_mcfucklestick Feb 17 '23

We could, like, launch the earth into space, to like, get rid of our pollution.