After Elon Musk’s success in launching thousands of satellites into low-Earth orbit, many might wonder: Why can’t we just send all our trash into space or even throw it straight into the sun? Despite the appeal of removing Earth’s growing waste problem by dumping it elsewhere in the solar system, this idea remains more fantasy than feasible reality, primarily due to the enormous costs and practical limitations involved.

John L. Crassidis, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, explains that sending garbage into space would require vast amounts of thrust and fuel, making it “not cost-feasible at all.” The challenge isn’t just launching the trash—it’s about where to put it. Unlike Earth’s pollution, which can be dumped into oceans or landfills, space is unforgiving. To avoid collisions with existing satellites or risk bringing debris back to Earth, waste would have to be moved at least 22,000 miles away, out of the Earth’s gravitational influence.

Currently, space is already cluttered with tens of thousands of objects, from defunct satellites to discarded gear, creating an unregulated orbital junkyard. While most of this space debris burns up upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, not all of it is so fortunate. In fact, a piece of space station debris recently survived re-entry and landed on a house in Florida. Given this, simply tossing Earth’s waste into the void could lead to unforeseen consequences.

What about sending trash to the Moon, you ask? Crassidis cautions against it, stating that any trash sent to the Moon could eventually crash into its surface, adding to the moon’s own environment. Even Mars is not a viable option. “You don’t want junk there, especially if we’re thinking 200 years into the future when we might be colonizing it,” he notes.

As for the sun, while it seems like the ultimate trash disposal destination, Crassidis suggests this too is beyond our current capabilities. The sheer logistical challenge of gathering all the trash, assembling it into a manageable payload, and launching it toward the sun would require a staggering amount of resources. According to Crassidis, the cost would be “trillions upon trillions of dollars,” and even then, we don’t fully understand the environmental impact that such frequent launches could have on our atmosphere or the space environment itself.

While sending our trash into the solar system might seem like a quick fix for Earth’s waste problems, Crassidis believes that future technological advancements could make it more feasible—but we’re far from that point. Until then, space remains a precarious place to dump our problems. Though sci-fi has explored this theme—like in the 1999 anime Planetes, where space junk becomes a pressing issue—real-world solutions are far more complicated and costly than imagined. For now, our best option may still be to focus on better waste management on Earth rather than turning the rest of the solar system into our trash bin.

By Impact Lab