Do wastebaskets exist in Star Trek?

[Shawnster]

Why wouldn't they? It's space. I can't think of anywhere that open disposal of waste would be MORE appropriate. You can't exactly "pollute" outer space.

Aside from putting garbage into the path of other ships, it's also a waste of material. You cannot simply continue to dump waste into space as you will be removing raw materials without replacing them. You would run into the same problem we have today with raw material scarcity due to throwing things away rather than recycling them.

This hardly seems fitting for a utopian society.

Putting garbage in the path of other ships? Do you have any concept of how vast space actually is?

The Federation is far from a utopian society. They may like to claim they are...but it certainly is not.

The United Galactic Sanitation Patrol takes care of these things.

 

[Vger23]

Putting garbage in the path of other ships? Do you have any concept of how vast space actually is?

Not to mention that any starship that is able to move through space at such incredible speeds would undoubtedly need to counter the constant bombardment of various particles (at all speeds), so there would already be a shipboard system that could deal with the threat of various items hitting the ship at speed.

Navigational deflector!

 

[Vger23]

No comments about the exchange between Spock and Valeris regarding "searching the refuse?"

 

[IrishNero]

Putting garbage in the path of other ships? Do you have any concept of how vast space actually is?

Not to mention that any starship that is able to move through space at such incredible speeds would undoubtedly need to counter the constant bombardment of various particles (at all speeds), so there would already be a shipboard system that could deal with the threat of various items hitting the ship at speed.

Navigational deflector!

 

[GNDN18]

The United Galactic Sanitation Patrol takes care of these things.

Ficus rules!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

No comments about the exchange between Spock and Valeris regarding "searching the refuse?"

Not much to say, except that it proves there is refuse, which was always a foregone conclusion.

 

[Mytran]

The only problem my brain trips over is the disposal chute set decoration or prop itself. I know it's the same set, but it seems to be in the same location on the deck of some dilithium crystals for "The Alternative Factor". It can't be a simple gravity drop chute like for garbage seen in apartments today, because those crystals would be in the way. Fifty years of thinking about the show rots your brain.

Same set piece, but relabelled and redressed in TAF to function as a circuitry access port instead.

Or is the actual layout of the set the thing that's bothering you? The dilithium crystals were never near that wall anyway, they were a couple of rooms further in.

 

[Mytran]

No comments about the exchange between Spock and Valeris regarding "searching the refuse?"

Not much to say, except that it proves there is refuse, which was always a foregone conclusion.

It would also mean that waste (or non food waste at least) is not recycled straight away, but placed into a holding area first. This effectively eliminates any sort of automatic "break the item into its component elements" system on board (IOW the 24thC replicators)

 

[Ithekro]

That or the "refuse" is the log of what materials have gone into the replicator-like system along with where and who put the item into the system.

 

[M'Sharak]

Do wastebaskets exist in Star Trek?

The only one that comes to mind was on Sigma Iotia.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

No comments about the exchange between Spock and Valeris regarding "searching the refuse?"

Not much to say, except that it proves there is refuse, which was always a foregone conclusion.

It would also mean that waste (or non food waste at least) is not recycled straight away, but placed into a holding area first. This effectively eliminates any sort of automatic "break the item into its component elements" system on board (IOW the 24thC replicators)

I don't believe it eliminates that possibility. What it eliminates is the possibility that that sort of breaking down occurs immediately, right when you put the waste in a chute, say. That possibility still exists at more centralized points, in those holding areas. Unless, by "automatic," you meant immediate.

 

[tharpdevenport]

There also may be refuse too big to be placed in recyclable machines, refuse that contains components that may be reusable and needs to be removed before destruction, and refuse that is not safe to just deal with in a standard way. Heck, maybe even some that others may want; maybe like a yard sale only with no money, where somebody goes and gets that upside down chair they've always wanted or fancy pepper grinder.

 

[Melakon]

Or is the actual layout of the set the thing that's bothering you? The dilithium crystals were never near that wall anyway, they were a couple of rooms further in.

The set doesn't bother me at all, I was a theatre freak during high school and college, and know about stage sets. I was misremembering where the crystals were in "Alternative", thinking they were in that prop since we never see Main Engineering at all. Unbelievable as it may be, I haven't liked the episode since first airdate.

 

[T'Girl]

There also may be refuse too big to be placed in recyclable machines ...

Occurs to me that there could be things that regulations forbid the disposable of. Things like the future equivalent of a "hard-drive," or equipment that was involved in a crewman's death, or materials altered by a supernatural event. Stored and not recycled.

Stuff like that.

 

[IrishNero]

And yet, there are no storage closets that I've ever seen, but that's another discussion.

 

[Mytran]

That side door in Kirk's cabin was originally designed as a walk-in closet, but the one scene featuring it was edited out of the broadcast episode (The Corbomite Maneuver).

 

[T'Girl]

And yet, there are no storage closets that I've ever seen, but that's another discussion.

TNG often showed large storage spaces/cargo holds.

The Franz Joseph blueprints (non-canon) displayed a TOS Enterprise with hundreds of storage spaces of various sizes.

 

[Kor]

24th-century humanity has evolved beyond the need to hoard personal possessions or to generate waste of any kind. So there are no storage closets, or waste bins.



Kor

 

[robau]

That's because you can go into a holodeck and play with whatever you want. Including people.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

I don't remember seeing a simple room wastebasket in a room at all.

Of course. What do you think they poop in with the utter lack of bathrooms in the future?