What happens if you throw trash into lava?

Could we throw trash inside volcanoes?

Americans toss out about 239 million tons of garbage each year. Some have wondered whether we could toss some (or all) of it into volcanoes, where it could be destroyed. There are about 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth, and many are pretty remote, making logistics complex. This video investigates whether the idea checks out.

Modern landfills use layered liners, leachate systems, and gas monitors to safely contain waste

Today, landfill engineering is far more complex than a hole in the ground, which was largely the system cities used less than a century ago. This video explains how it actually works.

The North American waste management market was worth $208B in 2019

Burning waste to generate energy is a $10B industry in the US alone. A growing number of major companies—including Amazon, Subaru, and American Airlines—are pursuing "zero landfill" sustainability goals.

Scientists have proposed using lasers to push space trash into Earth's atmosphere

Such projects would allow most debris to burn up and no longer pose a risk to active satellites, telescopes, and astronauts on space stations. Enacting these plans would require substantial investments from private and governmental space agencies and overcoming international laws that prevent the removal of another country's space equipment.

Radioactive waste solutions include glass smelting and dumping into graphite blocks

Since radioactive materials can take seconds to millions of years to decay, their disposal or storage requires creative solutions. Besides turning liquid waste into glass or storing medical waste in lead-lined rooms, spent nuclear rods are stored in deep-water pools.

What percentage of the world’s plastic waste actually gets recycled?

Despite growing awareness of the world’s plastic waste challenges, the numbers showing how much of the world’s plastic waste actually gets recycled are abysmal. Only 9% of the world’s plastic waste is properly recycled, and a significant portion remains landfilled, mismanaged, or incinerated. Read this article for further analysis of why this is and what can be done in the future to better manage plastic waste.

Spacecraft remnants and human waste left behind on the moon add to the trash in space

As more countries reach the moon with successful probe landings and unsuccessful crashes, more materials are left behind, adding to the amount of trash that needs to be retrieved. A United Nations treaty declared the moon a common heritage of humanity, exempting any one country from exclusive responsibility for cleanup.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

Turning trash into music

In a town built on a landfill, a music teacher and young musicians created an orchestra using instruments made entirely from trash. From oil cans to bottle caps, they turned waste into music.

In 2009, accidentally drilling into magma provided time capsules of volcanic glass

While drilling for geothermal energy in Iceland's Krafla Geothermal Field, magma encountered at a depth of 2,100 meters quickly formed glass upon making contact with drilling fluid. By trapping dissolved gases, volatile chemicals, and the physical characteristics of magma before cooling, the glass acts as a time capsule of ancient volcanic activity and magmatic conditions.

Trace your trash bag's journey from the curb to the landfill

A single garbage truck can hold 10 to 12 tons of waste per load. After curbside pickup, trash is transported to a transfer station before its final trip to a landfill.

Up to $68M in coins gets trashed every year

Waste facilities and TSA say they collect thousands of dollars of discarded money per year. A Wall Street Journal reporter visited a waste facility and learned what you can do with your extra change.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

Glass can be endlessly recycled without losing quality

Sand from specialized mines is thoroughly cleaned and melted at more than 1,600 degrees Celsius before being poured onto liquid tin and evenly spread out to form glass sheets. Some factories are designed to reprocess 100% of glass scraps created when cutting glass with diamond-tipped blades or lasers.

Cooling lava naturally creates hexagonal cracks to evenly relieve stress

When lava cools and turns into rock, it contracts and builds up tension, particularly when held in place by the surrounding landscape. Just as drying mud cracks, initial cracks in the rock are random, but quickly organize into a hexagonal pattern, which scientists consider the most space-efficient shape.

Watch the destructive force of bottom trawling on marine ecosystems

Bottom trawling is a fishing method where a net is dragged along the seafloor to catch a species of interest. The process produces as much carbon dioxide yearly as global aviation and leaves trails of destruction large enough to be seen in space.

Earth is the only planet in our solar system with fire

And while the sun seems like fire, and other planets have volcanoes, the sun and lava aren't the same thing as fire. To produce fire, a planet needs three ingredients: oxygen, fuel, and heat. No other planet has all three.

Learn why water can take millions of years to be recycled via the hydrologic cycle

While a single drop of water spends an average of nine days in the atmosphere before precipitating back to Earth, it can spend thousands of years in the ocean before evaporating, and hundreds of thousands of years deep in rock layers before being released as steam in volcanic eruptions. Some water molecules have been trapped in Antarctic ice sheets for millions of years since they last moved through the water cycle.

The surprising world of coal seam fires

Hundreds of coal seam fires are actively smoldering around the world at any given time, including some that have stayed lit for centuries. These fires have occurred naturally for millions of years, lit atop deposits of coal in the earth. Dive into...

Some faucets in regions near fracking wells run flammable water

A 2011 study found methane contamination as much as 3,000 feet away from wells, although there was no evidence of fracking chemicals in tested wells. Water with low methane concentrations is not harmful to drink, but it becomes flammable when mixed with air.

Fireworks contribute to air, water, and soil contamination and disrupt wildlife

Fireworks displays have far-reaching environmental consequences, including acid rain from displays during storms and microplastic pollution in water supplies. Wildlife has also been seen abandoning sites during fireworks and never returning.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Thermal runaway reactions can cause batteries to catch fire or explode

If a lithium-ion battery is heated, punctured, crushed, or short-circuits due to manufacturing flaws or degradation, the cathode and anode can make contact without the resistance provided by a circuit. The ensuing spike in chemical reactions increases the temperature and can release oxygen, initiating and intensifying burning of the battery's interior.

Bioluminescence may provide a sustainable alternative to electric lighting

French start-up Glowee is experimenting with lights made from bioluminescent microorganisms in public spaces to reduce energy use. While the technology shows promise, challenges remain with brightness, maintenance, and scaling it for widespread use.

The sewage of New York City

Residents of the five boroughs of New York produce 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater everyday. Seventy miles of sewer pipes, first built in the mid-1800s, feed the sewage to 14 wastewater treatment and recovery plants where the waste is treated back to viable, drinkable water. See what shouldn't go down the toilet here.

Why it's so hard to end the use of toxic lead

Lead was one of the earliest metals mined on Earth, desired for its soft malleability and used in cosmetics, pipework, gasoline, and more. But even though researchers demonstrated its toxicity in the 20th century, much of the world still uses it.

A laser energy system has allowed scientists to achieve fusion ignition

In 2022, scientists used lasers to create a powerful implosion that bound hydrogen isotopes together, releasing more energy than was input into the system. Research is ongoing to achieve this self-sustaining reaction with larger yields and energy gains.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Scientists have struggled to pin down Ebola's natural reservoir species for decades, but the available evidence suggests that it's very likely fruit and insect-eating bats found in Africa.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

This poison ivy knowledge quiz—accompanied by photos of the plant's varied forms—may help you identify this common rash-inducing growth.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.