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05/10/2005: "Replicators"

I've been watching another re-run of Star Trek: Next Gen. All jolly good TV and sci-fi, but a question occurred to me.

One of the characters went up to a replicator machine and ordered a glass of water - even specifying the temperature. Bzzzzt - there it was, all ready to be drunk. The water was drunk and the glass placed on a table before the character left to do something else. So I wondered what happens to the glass. There were no other items of used eat- or drink-ware lying around. Obviously you can't have machines churning out a new glass every time somebody among the thousands of crew wants a drink without there being some method of removing the vast numbers of glasses this would create.

First, there's the collection problem. As you never see used items lying around, there must be an army of people going round clearing up. Actually, now I think of it, for such a shiny spaceship, I've never seen anyone cleaning it, or even any form of automatic, mechanical cleaning going on - even in the transporter room where people are continually treading in muck from planets they've just beamed up from.

Secondly, what do you do with all these glasses, plates, etc once they've been collected by your highly efficient army of invisible collectors. I guess the logical route would be to 'de-replicate' them back into the energy or whatever they came from (which must be hugely inefficient compared to re-using them). Or perhaps they are disposed of in giant waste pods ejected from the back of the ship - where they don't show up out of the bridge window and spoil the view. Or maybe just vapourised - again a highly inefficient use of energy.

I shall look more closely and, if I spot any used items hanging about, or anyone dealing with this waste, I'll let you know.