In a marina, what food items can / cant be thrown overboard

[cj88]

Got to love all the opinion and assumption used to back up the desire to toss whatever feels fine over the side when and where it suits. Perhaps doing some proper research with an open mind is required, not just looking for something to confirm an already held position before deciding. Just because something is natural or biodegradable doesn't make it right to be put into every environment/food chain nor does thinking that you're only one person doing it a little because if enough people are all only doing it a little it soon adds up to enough to have an impact. I don't see why we can't adopt the same "Leave no trace" attitude as those spending time in the outdoors with the "Pack it in, Pack it out" approach.

[Singularity]

My current marina allows food to be brought onto boats. I'm almost certain that this policy is directly related to the increased prevalence of primates that can be found about the shoreline where practically none existed previously.

The opinions and presumptions can go both ways, where one side sees none of the marina activity as inherently natural and thus subject to continued modification, while the other side assumes that humans on boats in a marina is natural, but tossing scraps overboard cannot be acceptable under any circumstances.

Doesn't look like this will ever be reconciled here (too much poo slinging to find consensus).

[thinwater]

USCG regulations state you will have this (or equivalent) placard on your boat. What does it say?



(Not sayin' whether it seems reasonable or whether I agree, just sayin' it clearly says "no" and you have this on your boat. So What are we talking about? If the sign says "keep off the grass," you keep off the grass.)

[swordds]

I can recall when the government first proposed that recreational boaters had to install holding tanks. Of course very few boats (if any) had them and dozens of boaters in my marina came up with dozens of individual excuses for why the requirements should not apply to their individual boats and activities. Mostly the same arguments for dumping garbage being proposed here: along the lines that if only a few people only occasionally dump raw sewage into the marina then there should be no problems. And of course they each also rationalized that they somehow deserved to be among the ones entitled to dump.
The problem is that there are just too many people wanting to do the same thing in any given area. Of course if I am the only one who dumps garbage in my marina that is not a problem. I suspect there are even a few hungry fish and crabs who might benefit from some of the garbage (but I doubt if even the hungriest of crabs would appreciate coffee grounds). Even if 10 people dumped their garbage in the marina it would probably go unnoticed by most other boaters. But if several dozen people began dumping their garbage I believe the water quality would begin to show a negative impact, and if 100 boaters began to dump their garbage the place would soon become squalid.
I would think that anyone fortunate enough to own a boat should take a special interest in maintaining a pristine waterway environment and would be willing to sacrifice the little extra effort necessary to control and minimize their personal pollution.

[SuW]

Originally Posted by Sojourner

Coffee grounds from the French press, mainly cause there's no good way to get them out other than swirl and dump.... But that's all.

You can get Caffi French press coffee papers. You put them in before the coffee, add the water and then stir, folding the paper top over before you put the plunger in top. They are a bit of a fiddle until you learn how to use them, but the grounds come out without any water rinse...

[rbk]

Originally Posted by SuW

You can get Caffi French press coffee papers. You put them in before the coffee, add the water and then stir, folding the paper top over before you put the plunger in top. They are a bit of a fiddle until you learn how to use them, but the grounds come out without any water rinse...

Tree is cut down with two stroke chainsaw and loaded using heavy diesel equipment onto diesel logging truck where it is driven a couple hundred miles to a mill and well...milled using 3 phase power supplied by a coal power. Thousands of gallons of fresh water is added to the sawdust along with bleach and other chemicals where it it made into a slurry and eventually paper. It is then rolled and processed again using heavy electrical equipment then loaded onto diesel transport trucks and distributed about the country. Some is trucked to the outer limits, put on planes and flown to the islands where you buy the filter to make your coffee, and once used is placed in a plastic bag deprived of oxygen and buried in a landfill. I’ve left out the recycling of paper as you can add another third to overall carbon footprint, nor the footprint of the coffee, the coffee press or the plastic bag it went into. Not that I’m condemning people for using paper coffee filters but more thought needs to go into the big picture. Most remote islands and locations that you dump your garbage usually barge your trash back the mainland or across oceans or they’d be overrun with mountains of trash. When most people see locals burning piles of plastic they scoff but the carbon required to properly recycle that pile can far out weigh the carbon being put in the air by orders of magnitude.

[AKA-None]

So I guess the consensus is to toss anything you don’t want over the side? Might as well 5h1t in the marina too.

[rbk]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So I guess the consensus is to toss anything you don’t want over the side? Might as well 5h1t in the marina too.

Little more complex than that.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So I guess the consensus is to toss anything you don’t want over the side? Might as well 5h1t in the marina too.

Well... fish fxxk in it....

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So I guess the consensus is to toss anything you don’t want over the side? Might as well 5h1t in the marina too.

Um. Don't come to the Med... lots of my boat friends chit in the marina. Organic matter that can dissolve in a marina with some current is not as offensive as whole floating veggie parts that just sit there in the corner for a week or two. But that's just me.

[GordMay]

... In my region of Brazil, the tropical rain forest comes down the mountains to the water's edge (and often hangs over it). Imagine how many tons of leaves, branches and other organic matter goes into the ocean from the forest, especially after a rain. I think we sometimes lose sight of priorities...

Prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations advised athletes to spend as little time in the water as possible, avoid swallowing water, cover cuts with waterproof bandages and to shower as soon as possible after exposure, due to water pollution.

[Copacabana]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations advised athletes to spend as little time in the water as possible, avoid swallowing water, cover cuts with waterproof bandages and to shower as soon as possible after exposure, due to water pollution.

Yes, in the enclosed bay of Guanabara- a large bay with almost no flow of water in a city of over 10 million people. Sadly, Rio has a serious problem and the state is not very effective in their efforts to fix it.

[SuW]

Originally Posted by rbk

Tree is cut down with two stroke chainsaw and loaded using heavy diesel equipment onto diesel logging truck ..

Same is true of your toilet paper, dear. I live in Canada and the paper industry is a big employer.

I compost the coffee grounds and the paper filters. I have a composting toilet. When environmentalists (or progressive, or for that matter "left-wing" people) spend all their time criticizing one another for not being pure enough to get practical stuff done, we are circling the drain.

"Politics is the art of the possible." Pick your battles, pick your allies and don't be a pest.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by SuW

Same is true of your toilet paper, dear. I live in Canada and the paper industry is a big employer.

I compost the coffee grounds and the paper filters. I have a composting toilet. When environmentalists (or progressive, or for that matter "left-wing" people) spend all their time criticizing one another for not being pure enough to get practical stuff done, we are circling the drain.

"Politics is the art of the possible." Pick your battles, pick your allies and don't be a pest.

Without all the outrage, virtue signaling, shaming, and other holier-than-thou replies, the OP's not unreasonable question could have been answered in one or two posts. Maybe something like this?

"When at a marina it's best to take all your garbage up to the trash bin just like you'd do at home. When out at anchor or underway, do your best to follow the law, use common sense, and under no circumstances should plastic go over the side. Thanks for asking."

GHEEZ!

[hpaabor]

Originally Posted by billknny

Seriously? What kind of person would ask this question?

I don't want your trash floating past my boat. Why would anybody think that was even remotely appropriate? Heck, for that matter, why would you want YOUR trash floating around your boat???

This is the kind of behavior that gives liveaboard boaters such a bad name in so many places.

Aside from the fact that it is illegal, it is just plain rude and nasty.

Our rule is, if somebody else will see it before it dissolves, we keep it onboard until we can dispose of it appropriately. That applies at anchor as well as in a marina, or even underway. Now, that might mean tossing it overboard offshore, but we would NEVER intentionally impose our trash on somebody else. That's the golden rule.

This looked like a real question that was worthy of a real answer. Not sure what the vitriol is about. These are things that nature can deal with as opposed to the man made stuff collecting in the oceans. Its been a long time since I sailed in the US but I can remember rowing past human "logs" by cities and garbage barges dumping in the ocean by New York city. I now hear that people can't wash dishes in campgrounds. A search for a more sensible middle seems like a reasonable idea to me.