Endless Empty

By 2050, pollution has degraded the world to a point where families are dying, entire industries are grinding to a halt, and city streets are largely empty. The government-funded organization HITE — Hope in the Empty — exists to make Earth habitable again. Its solution is severe: littering, environmental destruction, and emission of toxic gases have all been criminalized. Anyone convicted faces a death sentence carried out in a place called the Endless Empty. HITE designed the Endless Empty to handle the world's remaining garbage as well — if the filth disappears there, the danger disappears with it. Or so the official reasoning goes.