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Broken down into energy and then remade into food by the replicators. There would have to be a small amount of energy injected into the process in order to replace the chemical energy the crew extracts from the food in the first place, but that doesn’t amount to much, relatively speaking.
This means that, in a very real sense, the crew is powered by the engines.
Through the same matter-energy conversion tech that operates the holodeck, the transporters, and the replicators. Waste material of all kinds is broken down to the atomic level and stored as energy.
there was a whole section of the TNG tech manual dedicated to waste disposal, how to divide them, how to recycle and store useful stuff etc. Unfortunately I dont have it anymore, anyone here can share?
Broken down into feedstock by the replicators, with some intermediate steps that remove and sterilize water etc. That feedstock is then converted back into useful products.
The other comments saying matter is turned into energy are flat wrong; Federation technology can’t generate net energy from processing arbitrary matter. It can however break the stuff down into a protein-polymer slush and store it, where it can be easily converted back into food, clothing, drugs, insulation etc.
All of this is detailed in the TnG technical manual.
Edit: For the pedants, net energy. Whatever intermediate steps may involve energizing the matter, but Federation or similar replicators do not make power when fed matter. They are modified transporters that convert something into something else, allowing you to use energy to change the molecular layout and, at higher energy expenditure, the atomic structures of products. Thus feedstock into products, waste into feedstock. A ship recycles everything via arrays of modified transporters with some side traditional water and gas extraction and manipulation.
I assume they don’t crap directly into the wall-mounted food dispensers, but their waste disposal system probably dissolves it in a beam the same way they recycle their dirty dishes in the food replicators.
When you have replicator and transporter technology, it becomes rather simple.
Fun fact: the 1701-D only had a crew of about 1,000 … ranged from 907 to 1012 … but had the carrying capacity of 6,000 for emergencies … hence why there were around 6,000 on her including marines in Yesterday’s Enterprise. So she was functioning way below capacity.
The ability to rebuild matter with almost no limits makes logistics a good deal simpler. It comes out of the replicator and it returns to the replicator.
All physical waste is pumped into the replicator system where the materials are broken apart and processed into sludge. That material is then recombined to make everything else. The ship’s reactors take up the slack as considerable energy is expended in the process.
They’ve done it the same way for about a thousand years in Trek
> ARCHER: Thanks, Hoshi. Here’s one from Molly McCook. ‘When you flush the toilet, where does it go?’ That sounds like an engineering question, so we’ll ask Commander Charles Tucker, our Chief Engineer. Trip. 13: 50
> TUCKER: Pause it, will you? 14: 10
> TUCKER: A poop question, sir? Can’t I talk about the warp reactor or the transporter? 14: 14
> ARCHER: It’s a perfectly valid question. 14: 20
> TUCKER: The first thing you’ve got to understand is we recycle pretty much everything on a starship. That includes waste, and the first thing that happens to the waste is it gets processed through a machine called a bio-matter resequencer. Then it gets broken down into. Hold on. 14: 29
> TUCKER: They’re going to think I’m the sanitation engineer. 14: 54
> ARCHER: You’re doing fine. 14: 57
> TUCKER: So the waste is broken down into little molecules and then they get transformed into any number of things we can use on the ship. Cargo containers, insulation, boots, you name it.
TLDR If possible food and sewage becomes becomes other food or something made of the same molecules. Polyester shirts get turned into polyester packets to be made into polyester shirts. They only recycle material into a different atomic or molecular structure if they can’t turn it into something with the same structure. This saves a bunch of electricity when running the replicators since they just need to reshape matter instead of cheating with nuclear physics.
According to the TNG Technical Manual:
>Waste and Sewage
>Each crew member aboard the Enterprise typically generates approximately 52 liters of wastewater and sewage per day. This wastewater is pumped to treatment and recycling units located in the environmental support complexes on Decks 6, 13, and 24. Preliminary treatment is accomplished by a series of mechanical filtration processes that remove solids and particulates. (The residue is conveyed to the organic waste processing system for further treatment and recycling.) Osmotic and electrolytic fractioning is then employed to remove dissolved and microscopic contaminants for treatment and recycling. The resulting water is superheated to 150°C for biological sterilization before being subjected to final mechanical filtration stage, then it is returned to one of several freshwater storage tanks for reuse.
>The various waste sludges recovered from water recycling processes are a valuable resource. The organic waste processing system subjects the sludge to a series of sterilizing heat and radiation treatments. The waste is then electrolytically reprocessed into an organic particulate suspension that serves as the raw material for food synthesizer systems. Remaining byproducts are conveyed to the solid waste processing system for matter replication recycling.
>Solid Waste Recycling
>Solid waste such as trash is conveyed to processing units on Decks 9, 13, and 34 by means of linear induction utility conduits. Incoming solid waste is automatically scanned and classified as to type and composition. Items that can be recycled with mechanical reprocessing are separated. Such items, which constitute approximately 82% of all solid waste, include articles of clothing, packaging and other discarded containers, and small personal articles. These items are conveyed to a series of dedicated processors that first sterilize the waste products, then reduce them to a recyclable form (such as processed fiber packets from which uniforms and other garments are fabricated). Hazardous materials (such as toxic, biohazard, and radioactive substances) are separated, and the remaining unrecoverable material is stored for matter replication recycling.
>Matter Replication Recycling
>Material that cannot be directly recycled by mechanical or chemical means is stored for matter synthesis recycling. This is accomplished by molecular matrix replicators that actually dematerialize the waste materials and rematerialize them in the form of desired objects or materials stored in computer memory. While this process provides an enormous variety of useful items , it is very energy intensive and many everyday consumables (such as water and clothing) are recycled by less energy intensive means. Certain types of consumables (such as foodstuffs) are routinely recycled into matter replication because this results in a considerable savings of stored raw material.
No one poops. We’ve evolved to utilize 100% of the things we ingest.
Or perhaps the poop is transported out of us. Then the transporter breaks it down and separates it into base materials and moved it to the appropriate replicator resource tanks
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Broken down into energy and then remade into food by the replicators. There would have to be a small amount of energy injected into the process in order to replace the chemical energy the crew extracts from the food in the first place, but that doesn’t amount to much, relatively speaking.
This means that, in a very real sense, the crew is powered by the engines.
Through the same matter-energy conversion tech that operates the holodeck, the transporters, and the replicators. Waste material of all kinds is broken down to the atomic level and stored as energy.
there was a whole section of the TNG tech manual dedicated to waste disposal, how to divide them, how to recycle and store useful stuff etc. Unfortunately I dont have it anymore, anyone here can share?
Enterprise D crew is about 1012 people on board. They dispose of it into energy, and it’s used in replicators.
Swing by a sun and open up the shuttle bay doors.
Broken down into feedstock by the replicators, with some intermediate steps that remove and sterilize water etc. That feedstock is then converted back into useful products.
The other comments saying matter is turned into energy are flat wrong; Federation technology can’t generate net energy from processing arbitrary matter. It can however break the stuff down into a protein-polymer slush and store it, where it can be easily converted back into food, clothing, drugs, insulation etc.
All of this is detailed in the TnG technical manual.
Edit: For the pedants, net energy. Whatever intermediate steps may involve energizing the matter, but Federation or similar replicators do not make power when fed matter. They are modified transporters that convert something into something else, allowing you to use energy to change the molecular layout and, at higher energy expenditure, the atomic structures of products. Thus feedstock into products, waste into feedstock. A ship recycles everything via arrays of modified transporters with some side traditional water and gas extraction and manipulation.
I assume they don’t crap directly into the wall-mounted food dispensers, but their waste disposal system probably dissolves it in a beam the same way they recycle their dirty dishes in the food replicators.
When you have replicator and transporter technology, it becomes rather simple.
Fun fact: the 1701-D only had a crew of about 1,000 … ranged from 907 to 1012 … but had the carrying capacity of 6,000 for emergencies … hence why there were around 6,000 on her including marines in Yesterday’s Enterprise. So she was functioning way below capacity.
Replicators.
The ability to rebuild matter with almost no limits makes logistics a good deal simpler. It comes out of the replicator and it returns to the replicator.
Replicators handle all of it.
All physical waste is pumped into the replicator system where the materials are broken apart and processed into sludge. That material is then recombined to make everything else. The ship’s reactors take up the slack as considerable energy is expended in the process.
They’ve done it the same way for about a thousand years in Trek
> ARCHER: Thanks, Hoshi. Here’s one from Molly McCook. ‘When you flush the toilet, where does it go?’ That sounds like an engineering question, so we’ll ask Commander Charles Tucker, our Chief Engineer. Trip. 13: 50
> TUCKER: Pause it, will you? 14: 10
> TUCKER: A poop question, sir? Can’t I talk about the warp reactor or the transporter? 14: 14
> ARCHER: It’s a perfectly valid question. 14: 20
> TUCKER: The first thing you’ve got to understand is we recycle pretty much everything on a starship. That includes waste, and the first thing that happens to the waste is it gets processed through a machine called a bio-matter resequencer. Then it gets broken down into. Hold on. 14: 29
> TUCKER: They’re going to think I’m the sanitation engineer. 14: 54
> ARCHER: You’re doing fine. 14: 57
> TUCKER: So the waste is broken down into little molecules and then they get transformed into any number of things we can use on the ship. Cargo containers, insulation, boots, you name it.
ENT: Breaking the Ice
Also this scene from Discovery
TLDR If possible food and sewage becomes becomes other food or something made of the same molecules. Polyester shirts get turned into polyester packets to be made into polyester shirts. They only recycle material into a different atomic or molecular structure if they can’t turn it into something with the same structure. This saves a bunch of electricity when running the replicators since they just need to reshape matter instead of cheating with nuclear physics.
According to the TNG Technical Manual:
>Waste and Sewage
>Each crew member aboard the Enterprise typically generates approximately 52 liters of wastewater and sewage per day. This wastewater is pumped to treatment and recycling units located in the environmental support complexes on Decks 6, 13, and 24. Preliminary treatment is accomplished by a series of mechanical filtration processes that remove solids and particulates. (The residue is conveyed to the organic waste processing system for further treatment and recycling.) Osmotic and electrolytic fractioning is then employed to remove dissolved and microscopic contaminants for treatment and recycling. The resulting water is superheated to 150°C for biological sterilization before being subjected to final mechanical filtration stage, then it is returned to one of several freshwater storage tanks for reuse.
>The various waste sludges recovered from water recycling processes are a valuable resource. The organic waste processing system subjects the sludge to a series of sterilizing heat and radiation treatments. The waste is then electrolytically reprocessed into an organic particulate suspension that serves as the raw material for food synthesizer systems. Remaining byproducts are conveyed to the solid waste processing system for matter replication recycling.
>Solid Waste Recycling
>Solid waste such as trash is conveyed to processing units on Decks 9, 13, and 34 by means of linear induction utility conduits. Incoming solid waste is automatically scanned and classified as to type and composition. Items that can be recycled with mechanical reprocessing are separated. Such items, which constitute approximately 82% of all solid waste, include articles of clothing, packaging and other discarded containers, and small personal articles. These items are conveyed to a series of dedicated processors that first sterilize the waste products, then reduce them to a recyclable form (such as processed fiber packets from which uniforms and other garments are fabricated). Hazardous materials (such as toxic, biohazard, and radioactive substances) are separated, and the remaining unrecoverable material is stored for matter replication recycling.
>Matter Replication Recycling
>Material that cannot be directly recycled by mechanical or chemical means is stored for matter synthesis recycling. This is accomplished by molecular matrix replicators that actually dematerialize the waste materials and rematerialize them in the form of desired objects or materials stored in computer memory. While this process provides an enormous variety of useful items , it is very energy intensive and many everyday consumables (such as water and clothing) are recycled by less energy intensive means. Certain types of consumables (such as foodstuffs) are routinely recycled into matter replication because this results in a considerable savings of stored raw material.
Different Star Trek series but the same basic principle even in the distant future.
There’s another scene like it in Enterprise it describes a very similar process with technology a lot more primitive than replicators too.
The Enterprise is as closed a system as possible for efficiency.
All disposed matter gets re-converted into the base molecules that are used by replicators.
No one poops. We’ve evolved to utilize 100% of the things we ingest.
Or perhaps the poop is transported out of us. Then the transporter breaks it down and separates it into base materials and moved it to the appropriate replicator resource tanks
The water is urine recyc. The food is poo recyc.
“doo-terium”