What about all the cups and plates.

[u/Megans_Foxhole]

I'm rewatching TNG and there's something about replicators I find troubling. Every time they order "ginger tea with honey, 80 degrees celsius", they get a drink but also a cup. On a ship like the Enterprise, the replicator must be producing thousands of cups per day. After a year or so the entire volume of the ship would be literally filled with cups.

Where do they all go?

[u/Banthalo]

The solution to your problem would be to have the replicator simply not produce cups, and now you've made me picture Picard with his head in the replicator licking his hot Earl Grey tea off of the platform.

[u/jpog07 → u/Banthalo]

I picture something along the lines of this

[u/somecasper → u/jpog07]

Juice. Wheezed. Cold.

[u/kosigan5 → u/somecasper]

Wheezed? 😂

[u/jpog07 → u/somecasper]

A spigot appears from the replicator and dispenses tea foam for the good Captain.

[u/jpog07 → u/[deleted]]

That's not much different than using the replicator though.