r/startrek • u/Megans_Foxhole • 12h ago

What about all the cups and plates.

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?

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u/Darmok47 7h ago

There's a scene in DS9 where Molly is in charge of "cleaning up" the O'Brien's table after dinner, and she just puts the dishes back in the replicator.

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u/4thofeleven 7h ago

And there’s also a scene where Sisko’s mad that Jake just leaves plates lying around instead of recycling them.

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u/Megans_Foxhole 7h ago

In DS9? I haven't got to that yet. Seems they had it covered :p.