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In the movie, WALL•E, we see that he has compacted the trash, then he builds a "building" out of the blocks.

Is that WALL•E's own doing, or is that part of his programming?

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  • I think he was programmed to do that... He ought to use all the ground he can cover efficiently, so stacking things upwards wasn't a bad idea.
    – sai-kartik
    Jul 27, 2020 at 14:05
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    Although, building it in something more complex than "stable pyramid" is probably someone he's evolved over the years, much like his other non-work interests.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Jul 27, 2020 at 14:15

1 Answer 1

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Building towers of trash are part of WALL•E's core functionality. He and his fellows are dropped off at a location with significant amounts of loose rubbish, compress it into towers which are then fed (via cranes) into incinerators.

The history of "trash planet" is that the Buy n Large Corporation sort of took over everything in true big box style and slowly mismanaged the handling of trash and eventually it overwhelmed the planet to the point where the humans have to get off so that the Buy n Large Corporation can just clean it without humans getting in the way and so they had to design little robots [like WALL•E] that could maneuver their way all around this way which is a WALL•E, and they would cube the trash, set it aside and then they would build towers and it then allows these large city-block wide sized incinerators that are on big tank treads to sort of roll in and like a hay baler with a big crane that can slice the towers down into digestible sections and incinerate them

Wall-E - Behind the Scenes

You can see the cranes, along with some half-eaten towers, in the opening scenes as WALL•E returns to his mobile base.

enter image description here

The plan is clarified further by a bonus featurette on the home release called "Operation Cleanup":

Back on Earth, an army of BnL "super-automatons" take charge of the cleanup. The WALL•Es will gather, cube, and vertically stratify waste into orderly towers. Mobile BnL incinerator units will then take over, reducing each tower to a combustion stream while harmful vapors are simultaneously pumped out of the atmosphere.

Operation Cleanup

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    Great answer, for a great movie. Jul 28, 2020 at 7:06
  • "Pumped out of the atmosphere". We have very different definitions of "out". Jul 28, 2020 at 16:33
  • @MadPhysicist - I'm assuming the goal was to use 'space age technology' to remove the toxins from the air. Suffice to say it failed
    – Valorum
    Jul 28, 2020 at 16:40
  • @Valorum - I would say that the Earth can recover from the wounds inflicted on her by the human race. The people were able to return because life was once again beginning to grow on the Earth's surface (the plant initially found by WALL-E).
    – Iron Man
    Jul 29, 2020 at 1:26

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