Trash Disposal

[tuffr2]

I would guess there are Navy's that do dump garbage over board. The Russian or Irainian for a quick example might dump their garage overboard. If they don't then the Philippine or Chinese do.

When the bogs of floating plastic washes up on shore where does it come from?

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[TurninTurtle]

The bagsx of garbage that float up come form all sorts of sources...

places still haul trash out to sea on a barge and dump. No sorting.

cruise ships.

yacht owners that dump their trash over the side.

Shipping containers that go over the side in a storm eventually break oen and all the stuff comes out. If it floats it might take months or years from when the container went over till the trash hits the beach.

It took about 12 months for the first trash from the Japan tsunami to hit the California beaches. There's still trash from that hitting the beaches.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by TurninTurtle

The bagsx of garbage that float up come from all sorts of sources...

places still haul trash out to sea on a barge and dump. No sorting.

cruise ships.
........

Don't think so....

[buzzstar]

Well, despite the smattering of nonsense, like what "the Navy" (various nations me thinks) may have done or may or may not still do, I did learn a few things, both newer techniques and things to watch. I had not known that "tin" cans steel or aluminum were often plastic lined, and a few disposal techniques were seemingly good, but perhaps to no avail if the locals do not care or have proper methods themselves. I like replacement packaging, and was relieved to learn feeding the fishes was OK. Thanks, all

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

RaymondR,

The El Ping method is described above in post #6.

Ann

Caught that Anne when I reread the post, thanks anyway.

For my part I am finding myself more and more reluctant to throw anything except food scraps over the side.

We are pretty lucky here in Australia in that we have thousands of miles of clean and tidy beaches and in general people have become much better with rubbish disposal than they used to be.

In my youth I travelled the roads a lot and the road sides were littered with trash. The government ran an anti littering campaign which was memorable because it had attractive people turning into pigs and going "oink oink". It must have been effective because the road sides are now pretty litter free and provide a much more pleasant aspect when one traverses them.

Don't want to impose on other folks or be excessively pedantic but I just feel a bit better about myself by not trashing the seas so I think I'll stick with carting the rubbish ashore and disposing of it properly.

[sartorst]

Be creative While doing a beach burn put a rock in a puddle of melted plastic with a tin can on its side melt more plastic over that WALA crab house, artificial reef of sorts all of this depends on your location of course

[daletournier]

Cruising has made me very conscious of just how much rubbish we (I) create. On a smaller boat it becomes quite difficult to store.
As mentioned in previous post , waste disposal once taken to shore is a real issue, our western conscience may be apeased but more often than not in less developed countries this trash is thrown into the water or jungle.
A week ago I pulled into a city of west sumatra. For 200rupiah you can tie your dinghy up to a little jetty, the locales will make sure its ok and will dispose of your rubbish.

So the next day we took our 4 bags of rubbish to the jetty and handed them over. The rubbish was then taken over to a little rocky platform built on the rocks next to the jetty. I then realised their rubbish disposal system is the tide comes in and the rubbish disappears.

I was sitting in the cockpit at Komodo indonesia with some friends, its a very busy dive town. The girls complained that the Indonesians should do something about the rubbish problem, I pointed out it was ours (tourists ) rubbish floating past, we are the big consumers in that town, we create massive amounts of trash through our consumption then judge the locals for not disposing of our trash the way we want them to.

I was in Bali recently, I think I read that there was something like 3,000,000 plastic bottles a month used! Its us white folks that are the main culprits.

While cruising I do my best to create as little rubbish (plastic) as possible. I ask locals where to dispose of it, accepting that often the above or similar is the end result. I don't have a better solution.





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[accomplice]

US law prohibits the discharge of anything within 3 miles of the coast and prohibits the discharge of plastic anywhere. It also requires that vessels keep on board a waste management plan available for inspection by USCG.

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-20...-sec151-57.pdf

Has anyone been boarded by the USCG and asked for their waste management plan?

If we are careful about not bringing a lot of packaging material on board, we can get up to two weeks worth in a small, 13-gallon bag. When we're not careful and have all the kids on-board, we fill up at least a bag every day.

[fryewe]

Originally Posted by daletournier

...Its us white folks that are the main culprits.

I feel so-o-o-o ashamed of my heritage now. I never knew base motives and actions were caused by skin color.

[Moontide]

Used to just fill bottles with water and sink them when at sea, until a friend told me small animals (hermit crabs or?) crawl inside, grow bigger and cannot get out and starve to death. Now I knock the bottoms out of the bottles so that there is a full size opening. Easy to do with a rod (mine is a drill bit extension piece).

Also toss anything organic - food, paper, etc. - at sea. In port take it to the trash cans. Moontide is over 13 meters (or whatever the limit is) so we have a written trash management plan on board, as required by law.

Am pretty sure it is also legal to dump used oil at sea (outside 12 miles?). Many people forget that oil is biodegradable.

[a64pilot]

Everything but plastic goes overboard for us, tin cans and even aluminum ones don't last long in a marine environment, and 99% of the plastic can be gotten rid of before you depart, you use re-usable containers and refill as necessary. Bust the beer bottles, Plastic we keep, even wash it off and weeks later, no smell. Plastic is forever, I hope soon we will abolish most of it. Some of course is necessary, but not most.
I do not dump oil, I keep it until I can get to where I can get it recycled, oil is something that is easily recycled and it's profitable for the person collecting it, they sell it, so it is usually actually recycled, cause they make money doing so.
Wanna make recycling a reality? Make it profitable, then people will fight over it to recycle it. Remember the returnable Coke bottles of our youth? What was wrong with that idea?
I had to use my old oil once when the O ring blew on an oil filter adapter, thought I had new oil but didn't, so keeping the old may help one day.
Water bottles, really? Maybe I'm old, or maybe just cheap, but I can't bring myself to pay more than Diesel costs for water in a bottle, plus the bottles are an abomination, just don't do it, why would you want to, bottled water is for fools, in my opinion.

Cruise ships used to dump trash, then a few videos went viral on that, and no more, it was a public relations nightmare for them.

WWII US Submarines movements were tracked by the Japanese by garbage, even though sunk, it was often recovered by Japanese fishermen, I was never Navy, but assume they are careful about what goes overboard now.

[zeehag]

in 1971 when i went on qe2 to england from ny city, i saw the dumping of bags behind the ship. this is no longer being done. there was a new law a bit more than decade or tow ago prohibiting that.
what i have noticed in rural mexico, the locals want the stuff sorted so plastic bottles and plastics are not burned with the other trash and garbage.
they use the bottles as floaties for nets and other needs . each panga leaves with a huge bag of 2-3 liter bottles in a net bag. i did not task for what these are used.. they just are with each ocean bound panga. they prefer these not to be squooshed as we do to store in smaller locations and smaller trash bags. these are re used.

as for trash and garbage at sea on a passage-- i feed fishies the biodegradeables and sack the rest after making it small. then i place the doubled bag of stuff into a place unused by anything else on boat until i get to a fuel stop or harbor for anchoring. there is generally a general use container for trash .

is not the color but the culture.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

.............
Water bottles, really? Maybe I'm old, or maybe just cheap, but I can't bring myself to pay more than Diesel costs for water in a bottle, plus the bottles are an abomination, just don't do it, why would you want to, bottled water is for fools, in my opinion.
......

You really are too kind

I occasionally buy 5 litre bottled water for several reasons...

One is that I like to have 10 or so empties on board for collecting shore side water by dinghy from waterfalls etc while coasting and while they last a fair while they don't last forever ( the handles usually fail). I find 5 litres is a manageable size.

Secondly I carry a reserve of bottled fresh water on long voyages just in case.

Thirdly, If you ever get strongly chlorinated water in your tanks it is nice to still be able to make a decent cup of tea.

Fourthly, it lasts and lasts, some time ago I refilled some with Tongan tap water which went green within weeks. I needed an empty one this morning to put some dirty diesel in, use by date was 2014.... the water is still perfect.

Fifthly... when they have a broken handle and have been retired from service they hold an amazing amount of other plastic trash.


Why do dirt dwellers buy 500mm water bottles when there is perfectly good tap water available? Because they are stupid is why...

[zeehag]

as for water bottles--in my boat i use garafones, aka 5 gallon, or 20 liter sized water bottles for drinking. i use a single reused liter or liter and half bottle in lieu of a glass of water--refilled from my garafones.
i found tap water here goes green in one week and stinky in 2.
there is a use for everything--it is our job to use rather than dispose of items.

[wsmurdoch]

Originally Posted by accomplice

Has anyone been boarded by the USCG and asked for their waste management plan?

We have been boarded by the USCG several times, four that I can think of right now. Each time they checked for the waste management placard and the oil pollution placard. It was on their checklist. The CG Auxiliary when doing a courtesy inspection suggested that we write up a waste management plan and put it in binder to show, but we have never been asked and not done that. We are a 34 ft sailboat.