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Whenever someone in Star Trek creates food or drink in the replicator it is generated in the bowl, plate, or cup. It seems like after a few months they would have piles of used dishes from replicator food while making more for every meal. What do they do with all the dishes?

Skyler
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    I thought my answer was pretty comprehensive given that you have an on-screen confirmation of Molly disposing of a plate in the replicator. Is there anything you'd want to see before considering an acceptance? – Valorum Sep 10 '19 at 20:00

3 Answers3

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They put them back into the replicator, where the replicator "beams" it away again, i.e. disintegrates it and puts the matter back into storage for future plates.

There is a DS9 episode, where Ben Sisko complains about Jake not putting the dirty dishes back into the replicator.

Meat Trademark
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Till B
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    Which raises the question, whether the replicator could be used as a dangerous weapon. Imagine it disintegrating a limb, or a small animal. – bitmask Oct 23 '13 at 19:11
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    No more dangerous than the holodeck. There are certainly safety protocols built into the device to prevent such weaponization. – Thaddeus Howze Oct 23 '13 at 19:13
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    @Thaddeus - if the replicators use the same safeties as the holodeck, I'd expect people to be losing fingers all the time – HorusKol Oct 23 '13 at 22:45
  • @HorusKol I think he meant transporters - replicators are an offshoot technology from transporters IIRC. – Izkata Oct 23 '13 at 23:11
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    holodecks, transporters and replicators are all related technology - holodecks mostly uses forcefields, though – HorusKol Oct 24 '13 at 00:10
  • I think there's a Voyager episode too, where this is (almost) shown on screen. Though I forgot which one. – user Oct 24 '13 at 08:27
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    @bitmask Even a present day conventional oven or microwave oven can be dangerous and could be turned into a (short range) weapon. – Johnny Oct 24 '13 at 14:26
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    @Johnny Microwave ovens have safety interlocks to prevent them from turning on when the door is open. Conventional ovens heat slowly (air does not transfer heat well) that someone would have to be completely numb not to notice they're being cooked. Also, they have doors! Replicators are a big hole in the wall that a child or pet could crawl into. Imagine Spot jumping up to get a last taste of Feline Supplement #8 as Data pushes the button to disintegrate the dishes. – Schwern Apr 06 '15 at 15:45
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    @schwern You think replicators have no safety interlocks? Just because you don't see the forcefield keeping errand hands and cats out of it doesn't mean it's not there. It may even have a further scan pattern interlock so if it detects living flesh, it refuses to disintegrate the item. – Johnny Apr 06 '15 at 16:50
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    @Johnny I'm sure they do, just like the holodeck, and we all know how well that works. I was more pointing out the difference between weaponizing a microwave (deliberately and carefully removing the door) which will still only make you mildly uncomfortable (microwaves aren't very energetic and do not penetrate the skin far, they are useful for cooking because they excite water well), and having a device which is only a computer glitch away from demonstrating E=mc^2 on your kid's hand. – Schwern Apr 06 '15 at 17:13
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As you can see below, they put their dirty dishes and cups into the replicator which then reverses the replication process (to allow the material to be used later);

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From DS9 : Hard Time

KEIKO : Make sure to put your plate in the replicator.

MOLLY : Okay.

Molly picks up her plate and puts it in the replicator. It disappears...

and DS9 : The Ascent

SISKO : I'm afraid Jake's going through a phase of his own.

(a beat)

I don't know what's so difficult about putting a dirty plate back in the replicator.

There's also a note in the Star Trek TNG: Technical Manual that some replicated materials (water and clothing) are recovered through mechanical and chemical means whereas food is most often returned to the feedstock pile due to limits on resupplies while in space:

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 mechanical or chemical means. Certain types of consumables (such as foodstuffs) are routinely recycled using matter replication because this results in a considerable savings of stored raw material

Community
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Valorum
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    Interesting. Is this what happens when they use the toilet too? – zipquincy Aug 01 '14 at 21:20
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    @zipquincy - Actually no. The TNG manual says that they can theoretically use "osmotic and electrolytic fractioning" to reclaim foodstock from wastewater but that they generally just dispose of human waste at the nearest Starbase. Obviously this would be different on a long voyage. – Valorum Aug 01 '14 at 21:53
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    That looks really dangerous: what if you press the button before taking your hand out? Does it get disintegrated? It should have a door like a microwave oven. It's health and safety not gone mad. – Max Williams Aug 12 '14 at 11:23
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    @MaxWilliams - I'm assuming that like most things in Star Trek, there's oodles of AI working behind the scenes to ensure you don't get zapped by the appliances. – Valorum Aug 12 '14 at 11:28
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    Yes, i guess you're right. Thought it would be fun to see a scene where gangsters jam someone's head in the replicator till they tell them where da money is. – Max Williams Aug 12 '14 at 11:45
  • Someone from previous centuries seeing little Molly put the dishes in the replicator would assume she was a powerful witch or sorceress, and since she is able to use some almost magical technological artifacts, who's to say they were incorrect? – M. A. Golding Jun 18 '15 at 21:07
  • @Valorum I think in VOY (Year Of Hell, maybe) - there's a scene where Chakotay presents Janeway with a pocket watch he'd replicated a while back for her birthday and she's somewhat forceful he should recycle it for the energy? – Jon Clements Jul 19 '17 at 08:51
  • I just wonder, since it is mass energy conversion, how much power is that plate worth in energy? Since E=mc², it would be like returning the energy of a small nuke to the power grid. – Adwaenyth Jul 19 '17 at 09:42
  • @Adwaenyth - You don't get all the energy back, just the amount that it took to turn the raw materials into a plate. – Valorum Jul 19 '17 at 10:57
  • @Valorum Then what exactly ARE these raw materials? If you have to alter the nucelonic composition we're right back where we started. ;) – Adwaenyth Jul 19 '17 at 11:52
  • @Adwaenyth - Good question. Dunno – Valorum Jul 19 '17 at 12:15
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If you watch carefully, in some episodes they put these items back into the replicator where they are then broken back down into energy and re-absorbed. This is, after all, just a branch of the transporter technology.

user
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John S.
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