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

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by redhead

My question, I guess, would be if you have say 150 liveaboards and they all did it 3X a day, would that affect the water quality, the fishies. etc. I know here in the PNW we would have seals all over the place and trust me, you don't want lots of seals near you if you live aboard.

We used to have a man living aboard - "Grumpy Joe" and he threw all his fruit and veg leftovers overboard every morning. For the next two hours, I'd have to dodge gulls & cormorants dive bombing everyone who moved on the dock.

I come down on the no side, mostly for the amount of birds I know it draws and the number of seals I imagine it would.

In addition to seals we have harbor muscrats that once ona boat are dangerous. They look cute, like those varmints down in Monterey, California, but they aren't. Sure, they were here before we were, but I don't think that's the point.

Originally Posted by HudsonForce

but I do understand that there are differences depending upon location.

Makes a LOT of sense. Evidently not common enough, though.

[rbk]

If we liveaboard (all 70 of us here) all threw our vegetable matter overboard, that would by definition upset the natural way of things.

Busy harbor/anchorage...save it for a few days and dump underway or take it out with the dingy

or are all the liveaboards there just lazy?

Not trying to pick on you but your initial post about the uhhgg...wildlife...and the inconveniences they bring was just slightly irritating. I cant stand the bird sh*t and otter sh*t as much as the next person when I step in it, or its on my boat but it comes withe package. Maybe if people weren't so busy decimating our fish stocks the wildlife wouldn't have to scavenge for table scraps in our harbors.

[Tetepare]

I don’t condone tossing scraps in the marina, though I know my marina any meat scraps won’t last the night with all the bullhead and snapping turtles.

[Shrew]

Who says the food we dump, along with the spices, sauces, etc is actually healthy for the local flora and fauna? Just look at the list of foods you can't feed your dog:

alcohol
avocados
chocolate
caffeine
citrus
coconut and coconut oil
grapes
raisens
macadamia nuts
milk/dairy
Onions
Garlic
Chives
Xylitol (sweetener)
Yeast Dough


It would be somewhat outrageous to claim/assume you are sure that all of our waste is actually healthy to be consumed by the diversity of creatures below our hulls.

If it didn't grow or live there, it doesn't belong there.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Shrew

Who says the food we dump, along with the spices, sauces, etc is actually healthy for the local flora and fauna? Just look at the list of foods you can't feed your dog:

alcohol
avocados
chocolate
caffeine
citrus
coconut and coconut oil
grapes
raisens
macadamia nuts
milk/dairy
Onions
Garlic
Chives
Xylitol (sweetener)
Yeast Dough


It would be somewhat outrageous to claim/assume you are sure that all of our waste is actually healthy to be consumed by the diversity of creatures below our hulls.

If it didn't grow or live there, it doesn't belong there.

Your points are highly valid, including that humans don't belong there, which sort of screws everything else up.

Unless humans are supernatural beings and everything else is our creation that we have the responsibility with some amount of omnipotence to control...then we too are just parts of the ecosystem. Sooner or later this needs to be hashed out. But excellent points on the toxicity of the foodsuffs.

[RaymondR]

If you put it in the dumpster they take it out and put it in a land fill where it rots releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The city of Perth had a land fill which was covered up and then used as a recreational area. They discovered that large volumes of methane were venting so collected it and used it to heat the swimming pool. However most times it is just allowed to vent.

It's bacteria eating the bio waste which creates the methane and the same process happens pretty well everywhere in the biosphere and to pretty well all the bio waste (Its bio waste to us but a living for the bacteria)

Human sewage is used to remediate old mine sites which is primarily a process of fixing toxic substances where they do least harm. Since we are already putting biocides in the water of the marina from our antifoul perhaps we are doing more good than harm by encouraging the growth of bacteria which might assist to fix the nasties in a manner less harmful than letting it disperse more widely through the sea or river. Perhaps we should be encouraging the introduction of macerated biowaste into some marina waters.

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Perhaps we should be encouraging the introduction of macerated biowaste into some marina waters.

I'd like to see peer-reviewed science to back that theory up. It is one thing to propose to NOT do something until more information is unavailable. Advising to take an action despite the lack of information is simply irresponsible.

[Copacabana]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Usually I just throw my phone, glasses and those irreplaceable special thread nuts and bolts.

I'm starting my own artificial reef.

The best answer so far! Hilarious!

There's a big campaign for boaters in Brazil that basically says "don't throw anything in the water that fish don't naturally eat." At anchor I have no problem tossing fruit rinds, chicken skin, vegetable peelings etc. (I know, it's not what fish naturally eat...). The crabs eat what sinks and vegetable matter decomposes. I just take objection to boats tossing stuff overboard in a crowded anchorage (or where it ends up on the beach). A few weeks ago, I was swimming and came face to face with a large piece of BBQed pork floating on the surface...

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Shrew

I'd like to see peer-reviewed science to back that theory up. It is one thing to propose to NOT do something until more information is unavailable. Advising to take an action despite the lack of information is simply irresponsible.

Since the geneticists and the AGM/CC crowd got loose "peer reviewed" ain't what it used to be.

My intention was to identify possible issues which should be considered before jumping to the it's-a-bad-practice conclusion. Put it in the water where it will become food for heavy metal fixing bacteria or dump it in a land fill where it will become a potent greenhouse gas emitter?

[cj88]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Put it in the water where it will become food for heavy metal fixing bacteria or dump it in a land fill where it will become a potent greenhouse gas emitter?

Or make compost with it.

[GrowleyMonster]

Don't be silly. How hard is it to visit the dumpster when you go ashore, and dispose of garbage properly? Instead of being a slob and trying desperately to justify it, be a good sailor, good liveaboard, good neighbor, and all around good person, and dispose of garbage properly. The marpol garbage regulations are reasonable and sensible. A lot of thought went into writing and ratifying them. Just follow the rules, at least as well as possible. Make the effort.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by GrowleyMonster

Don't be silly. How hard is it to visit the dumpster when you go ashore, and dispose of garbage properly? Instead of being a slob and trying desperately to justify it, be a good sailor, good liveaboard, good neighbor, and all around good person, and dispose of garbage properly. The marpol garbage regulations are reasonable and sensible. A lot of thought went into writing and ratifying them. Just follow the rules, at least as well as possible. Make the effort.

The usual solution, move the problem elsewhere out of sight.

A few years ago when I was anchored in the river with the catfish I went in search of a flood model for the river. I did not find a flood model however I did find an environmental study on it. One of the items of information contained in the report was an item on the tonnage of silt flushed out into the large bay the river flows into. It was hundreds of thousands of tons per year.

The silt comes from the cane fields where they have allowed land clearing to the banks of the river. It is the mineral fines from the soil and once you remove the fines only sterile sands remain so massive amounts of harm is being done to soil fertility along the river (the extensive sea grass beds in the bay however are thriving)

The damage to the soil fertility on the land is occasioned whilst producing a product many doctors now refer to as "white death" and is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic in many countries.

This is the orthodox way we have gone about settling coastal rivers and in spite of the ill effects to the riparian and coastal environments and public health why should we change.

I agree, we should not just carelessly dispose of our rubbish by throwing it over the side and I am extremely affronted when I see someone doing so. As suggested in one of the other posts we could use it to return fertility to our gardens and when I lived in a house ashore we had one of those compost tumbler things to do just that but I don't know where I'd put it on a 40' boat nor use the product from it.

In a former life I was responsible for the operation of a number of offshore oil rigs and would have been familiar with MARPOL. At this remove in time I cannot recall the detail of the regulations but do recall that we had garbage grinders and did not send bio waste ashore for disposal.

To answer the original question, nothing should be "thrown" over the side but if you take care to macerate food items and the marina is one which flushes well enough you are probably not doing any harm to, and may even be doing good for, the environment.

It's a water quality issue then and we have well established techniques for monitoring water quality.

[Cherp]

I often toss a leg of ham overboard in the marina, after I've taken a bite out of it and decided I'm not in a ham mood that day. Also, it's fun tossing an iceberg lettuce overboard, seeing how far you can throw it from the boat. Same with bottles of champagne, sacks of rice and wheels of cheese. All good clean fun.

[kas_1611]

Originally Posted by Rugger

Questionable things:

Bacon grease, chicken / steak bones (dont know about these)

Obvious things:

veggie scraps

Feel free to add items.

Thoughts?

Shouldn't throw any food items overboard in a marina or anchorage. Put them in the garbage like everything else.

Marpol regulations apply to us as much as commercial shipping.

Ask yourself "would you throw it in your garden at home?" Or are you one of those people that flings banana skins from the car as you drive along?

[Copacabana]

[QUOTE

Ask yourself "would you throw it in your garden at home?" Or are you one of those people that flings banana skins from the car as you drive along?[/QUOTE]

Yes and yes.

Why do you think biodegradable garbage is better in a landfill? Ideally, we would all separate our garbage into recyclable material and organic material, which we would compost in our gardens or in public composting bins (and make biogas at the same time).

Tossing vegetable matter in the sea from a few boats won't have any effect on the environment. 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...

Anyway, the OP was asking about tossing stuff in a marina. I suppose it would be better to put everything in the trash to avoid annoying your neighbours with floating potato peels and whatnot. I'm not sure there is much of an environmental argument to make concerning the tiny amount of organic waste produced by boats.