{"group":"grow","pic":"living/pics/waste-city.webp","question":"What happens to everything you throw away?","answer":"It comes back. Water returns to the taps, urine feeds the farms, scraps feed the mealworms, and old plastic is printed into something new.","play":{"label":"See where the water goes","href":"play/#mine"},"leave":{"title":"What you leave behind","line":"One person's waste, drawn to scale. Switch between a day and a year.","day":"In a day","year":"In a year","rows":{"urine":{"name":"Urine","text":"Mostly water, with the nitrogen crops love."},"faeces":{"name":"Faeces","text":"Water, and food for bacteria."},"rubbish":{"name":"Dry rubbish","text":"Packaging, clothes, wipes and scraps."}},"away_title":"There is no away","away":"Nothing goes into Mars's soil, ice or air untreated. So every gram is sorted where it is made, and put back to work."},"vault":{"title":"Inside the waste vault","steps":[{"title":"Digest","text":"Sealed tanks of bacteria break down scraps and faeces. Carbon goes back to the farm air, minerals back to the beds."},{"title":"Feed the farms","text":"A glass column of bacteria turns urine's urea into nitrate, the plant food crops like best."},{"title":"Press into tiles","text":"Rubbish that cannot be reused is heated and squeezed into hard, clean tiles, and its water saved."},{"title":"Sort into six","text":"Six bins in every home: human waste, food, plastic, metal and glass, mixed, and hazardous."}]},"reuse":{"title":"Most of it comes back","line":"The share of dry rubbish that goes back into use, era by era.","eras":{"crew":"Toilets, a compactor and a plastic recycler.","town":"Digesters, a nitrifier and trash turned into gas for the fuel plant.","city":"Waste vaults in every district, and a print shop for plastic."}},"loop":{"title":"The loop","line":"From you to the farms and back. Scraps run a smaller loop of their own, through the mealworms.","stations":["You","Toilet","Nitrifier","Farm tanks","Crops","Kitchen"],"inner":["Scraps","Mealworms"]},"tile":{"title":"Ten times smaller","line":"The compactor squeezes rubbish to about a tenth of its size. The tiles are hard, clean and dry, and good for stopping radiation.","cube":"A cubic metre of rubbish","tile":"Its tile"},"earth_mars":{"earth":{"head":"The bins are taken away"},"mars":{"head":"There is no away"},"pics":{"earth":"living/pics/em-waste-earth.webp","mars":"living/pics/em-waste-mars.webp"},"rows":[{"label":"Rubbish","icon":"recycle","earth":"Collected every week and carried off out of sight.","mars":"Every bin stays in the city, so everything in it is put back to work."},{"label":"Water","icon":"drop","earth":"Rain refills the rivers and reservoirs.","mars":"No rain at all: the water from every flush comes back round to the tap."},{"label":"Soil","icon":"leaf","earth":"Compost goes back on the fields.","mars":"Nothing goes into the ground untreated: waste is cleaned, then fed to the farms."}]},"living":"Nothing smells, nothing piles up and nothing is wasted. Your cup was a food tray last month, the strawberries were fed by the city's own loop, and the water in your shower has been round more times than anyone can count.","fact":"Each Cygnus cargo ship leaves the space station packed with rubbish and burns up as it falls back through the air. The largest, first flown in {cyg_year}, carries up to {cyg} kg.","later":{"pics":{"city":"living/pics/waste-city.webp","far":"living/pics/waste-far.webp"},"city":{"tag":"Printed again","text":"Plastic is shredded and printed into cups, clips and tool handles, metal and glass go back to the furnace, and scraps feed the farms."},"far":{"tag":"The store becomes a mine","text":"The frozen store's tiles and salt cakes are dug up again as stock for the city's builders and chemists."}},"pin":[0.8,0.6],"scene":{"pic":"living/pics/scene-waste.webp","look":"03-15","shot":"vault","focus":"50% 50%","spots":[{"at":[0.15,0.42]},{"at":[0.42,0.4]},{"at":[0.75,0.5]},{"at":[0.88,0.78]}]},"proof":{"pic":"living/people/waste-proof.webp","place":"International Space Station","when":"February 2016","head":"Taking out the rubbish","credit":"Photo: NASA (public domain)"},"quiz":[{"q":"What turns urine into food for the farms?","a":["A column of bacteria called a nitrifier","Sunlight on the plain","The tile press"],"why":"Bacteria in the nitrifier turn urine's urea into nitrate, the form of nitrogen plants like best, and the nitrate water feeds the farm's tanks.","more":"Europe's MELiSSA loop, started in {mel_start}, copies a lake with bacteria, algae and crops. Its pilot plant opened in Barcelona in {mel_pilot}.","cite":"03-15 WR-05, F-19","from":"fix","fig":0,"icon":"recycle"},{"q":"How much smaller does the compactor make rubbish?","a":["About {hmc_x} times","About twice","A thousand times"],"why":"NASA's heat-melt compactor squeezes and heats rubbish into a hard, clean tile about a tenth of its size, and keeps its water.","more":"In China's year-long Lunar Palace run, fermented crop waste fed the wheat and cut the mineral salts it needed by {lp_slo} to {lp_shi}%.","cite":"03-15 F-15, F-20","from":"why","fig":1,"icon":"layers"},{"q":"Where does rubbish go on Mars?","a":["Back into use, or into a frozen store","Into a pit in the ground","Out into space"],"why":"Nothing goes into Mars soil, ice or air untreated. What is not reused is sterilised and kept in a frozen store.","more":"Antarctica's McMurdo base ships its rubbish home: in {mc_date} the {mc_ship} sailed with {mc_cont} containers of it.","cite":"03-15 WR-02, WR-08, F-26","from":"problem","fig":0,"icon":"recycle"}],"notes":[{"beat":"fix","text":"NASA's trash-to-gas unit has flown {osc_n} times on Blue Origin's New Shepard and turned up to {osc_long}% of rubbish into gas in longer tests.","cite":"03-15 F-18"}],"from":"From the waste vault","everyday":{"title":"A day of the loop","items":[{"time":"07:10","head":"Water comes back round","text":"Air, not water, carries the morning's flush away. By tonight its water is back in the loop.","tag":"No water wasted","pic":"living/pics/scene-waste.webp","pos":"42% 50%"},{"time":"12:30","head":"Scraps feed the farm","text":"Lunch scraps go in the green bin, feed the mealworms and come back to the farm halls as rich food for the crops.","tag":"Six bins at home","pic":"living/pics/food-far.webp","pos":"50% 55%"},{"time":"17:50","head":"A new cup from old plastic","text":"The print shop turns last month's packaging into cups, clips and tool handles. Yours is still warm.","tag":"{ru_city}% back in use","pic":"living/pics/waste-city.webp","pos":"70% 40%"}]}}