What If We Dump Trash Into Volcanoes?

What if we Dump Trash into Volcanoes?
Now, the only advantage here as compared to existing garbage

incinerators would be conservation of fuel required for burning. However,
there will be quite a number of disadvantages. Firstly, in order to burn the
trash, we will have to locate a currently active volcano which also has a
lava lake. Such volcanoes are quite rare. Secondly, transporting the
garbage will cost time, money and a whole lot of fuel. Thirdly, modern
garbage incinerator plants are more efficient in controlling harmful
emissions into the atmosphere as compared to volcanoes. Fourthly,
although lava is extremely hot, it can’t melt everything. Hence, the
remaining trash would just float and when the volcano would erupt, the
trash would spread to surrounding areas, contaminating the soil. Fifthly,
water in trash trapped in lava expands hundreds of times its original volume
to form steam. This expanding steam which puts extreme pressure on the
lava, may burst out, thus creating mini explosions. Lastly, an active volcano
can be unpredictable. Hence, if it erupts while one is dumping some
garbage, the explosion will be fatal.
volcano is one of the most unforgiving natural phenomenons on

Earth. If you were to fall into its magma-filled center, your body
would quickly bubble up, and disappear without a trace.
So if they’re so good at getting rid of things, why aren’t we using

them to get rid of our garbage? Has anyone tried it before?
How would we transport all our trash to them? What dangers

would be involved?
Americans alone generate about 254 million tons of trash per

year, and although dumping it all into volcanoes might sound like
a perfect way to get rid of it, it wouldn’t be that easy. Volcanoes
might look like nature’s garbage incinerators, but in reality,
they’re much more dangerous and unstable, not to mention a lot
harder to get to.
Would overcoming these obstacles be worth it? Or would

dumping our trash in volcanoes just cause even more harm to our
planet?
The first obstacle in our quest for volcanic garbage disposal would
be finding an active volcano that can get the job done. There are
only about 1,500 potentially active volcanoes worldwide, and most
of them aren’t located anywhere near humans, for obvious
reasons.
That means that getting all our trash to an active volcano could
turn out to be pretty expensive, and once we get there we may find
out it’s not even the right kind of active volcano. The kind of
volcano we’d be looking for is called a shield volcano, a slow-
erupting variety that contains the iconic lava lakes that gradually
spew out onto the Earth.
Unfortunately, these aren’t very common. You’re more likely to

come across their angry cousins, known as stratovolcanoes.
Stratovolcanoes are known for their explosive eruptions, caused

by the build-up of pressure from hot gas and magma. In other
words, they’re probably not the safest location for the town dump.
But let’s say we’re lucky enough to find ourselves a nice active
shield volcano; before we worry about the logistics of getting our
trash there, let’s figure out if it’s even a good idea to dump it
inside.
If you were one of the first waste collectors hired to drive up to the
vent of a volcano, you’d quickly start to question your career
choices. The vent of a volcano is a treacherous environment full of
poisonous gases, lava splatter, and projectile rocks; and things
only get worse once you start throwing stuff inside.
In 2002, a group of Ethiopian researchers threw a 30 kg (66 lb)

bag of trash into a volcano, and the results were explosive. Lava
lakes are unstable, so if you pierce their surfaces with something
cold, like trash, you’ll trigger a chain reaction of explosions
involving pressurized and acidic steam.
So can you imagine how big those explosions would be if you

threw an entire nation’s trash in there? Well to put it in
perspective, rockfalls into lava lakes in Hawaii have sent lava 85
m (280 feet) into the air, so it’d probably look something like that.
Even if you could safely get your trash into the volcano, you’d still
have to worry about all the air pollution created by burning our
waste without filters. Plus, not all materials will completely break
down in lava, which means the polluting remnants could erupt
out and contaminate the surrounding landscape; not ideal if you
were hoping to burn nuclear waste, for example.
Add these environmental impacts on top of the fact that shipping

all our trash to these volcanoes would significantly increase the
carbon footprint of the waste disposal, and the whole thing looks
like a terrible idea.
If we’re going to burn our trash, why not at least do it some place
where we can use the heat released through incineration to create
new sources of energy? Or, instead, maybe we could just shoot our
garbage out into space? Surely there can’t be any harmful effects
there… right?

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What if we Dump Trash into Volcanoes?

Now, the only advantage here as compared to existing garbage

volcano is one of the most unforgiving natural phenomenons on

So if they’re so good at getting rid of things, why aren’t we using

How would we transport all our trash to them? What dangers

Americans alone generate about 254 million tons of trash per

Would overcoming these obstacles be worth it? Or would

Unfortunately, these aren’t very common. You’re more likely to

Stratovolcanoes are known for their explosive eruptions, caused

In 2002, a group of Ethiopian researchers threw a 30 kg (66 lb)

So can you imagine how big those explosions would be if you

Add these environmental impacts on top of the fact that shipping

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