Do You Dump Your Trash Over Board?

[Delancey]

Wow!

Umm. Reminder, nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to cruise to destinations that don't have adequate waste disposal facilities. You chose to litter. That's your choice. You are an affluent person from the United States. You seem to forget this.

I'm outta here.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by colemj

No, what I have been arguing is perspective. In many places, if you take your inorganic trash to land - and you can actually find a receptacle for it - that trash will be taken and dumped in a mangrove area adjacent to a beach. Any reasonable storm or heavy inland rain will then flood that area and the trash will be sent all over the place.

Some of us cruise for 7 months or several years without ever touching a dock. Some of us cruise in areas with absolutely no garbage facilities at all other than people just dumping their trash out the back of their living areas.

In these cases, dumping appropriate non-burnables offshore is far more environmentally sound than what is available else-wise. And open burning plastics and other nasty things is far more favorable than dumping them, even though burning is considered a very bad thing in modern areas.

Again, a perspective is needed. If one doesn't have one from experience, it pays to listen to those who do.

Mark

Mark, I've already said as much. In your scenario I'd likely agree. But, your scenario is NOT what most people on CF experience.

Congrats on the long-duration cruising. I hope to follow in your wake on that. It's impressive that you can stock your boat for 7 months at a time. Regardless though, I assume you would agree that since you carried it out with you, your boat clearly has the space to pack the garbage back in. But if it's truly the case that tossing is more environmentally friendly, then toss away.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Delancey

Wow!

Umm. Reminder, nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to cruise to destinations that don't have adequate waste disposal facilities.

Wow, that is a strange personal belief system - only cruise where waste disposal meets high industrialized standards and stay out of the "ruined dirt-world" with all the uncivilized poor people.

You are outta here because you couldn't answer a couple of really simple questions about trash removal and handling outside of NYC?

Mark

[zboss]

Yep, we can dump our heads overboard, and dump toxic chemicals overboard, but we cannot toss over a clear glass bottle in 10,000 feet of water? I don't see the logic.

Lets be realistic here... these new rules were written in response to large vessels with thousands of passengers - cruise ships - and large commercial ships with massive leaky bilges.

I'll continue to toss whatever I can legally toss overboard.

In the BVI, I toss my trash in a can. That can goes to the local dump, which they periodically burn; toxic chemicals and all because we have no recycling. Then they get a backhoe and whatever didn't burn get put onto a barge. They take that barge and go out to the trench and push it overboard. So, even if I keep my bottle on my boat, it still ends up in the same place but now I have to pay someone to do it for me.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Mark, I've already said as much already. In your scenario I'd likely agree. But, your scenario is NOT what most people on CF experience.

Congrats on the long-duration cruising. I hope to follow in your wake on that. It's impressive that you can stock your boat for 7 months at a time. Regardless though, I assume you would agree that since you carried it out with you, your boat clearly has the space to pack the garbage back in. But if it's truly the case that tossing is more environmentally friendly, then toss away.

Much of the Bahamas and Caribbean fit my description, so it is likely that there are more people than you think experiencing it.

Yes, if everything was static, we could pack out bottles and cans. We would probably have to carry them around for over a year, which presents much problems because they really cannot go back into the storage places they come from, and it is very difficult to not have them stink and rust or cause physical harm when, for example, trying to get the spare anchor rode out of the locker containing broken bottles and sharp corroded cans. In other words, it just is not practical.

It also is not static - we buy canned and bottled goods at places along the way that do not have adequate garbage facilities. That means that our storage is more limited than our stores. These places have dumps in the edges of mangroves, etc. We make a decision that this is less favorable environmentally than sinking them in thousands of feet of water 100 miles offshore. Others apparently think the opposite.

Mark

[Cheechako]

Much of the sea bottom is barren. an empty can almost always ends up with an inhabitant from what I've seen!
I think some seem to forget that a creature often doesn't know the difference between a sunken ship and a reef!

[Delancey]

No. To be frank, I am outta here because I see no point in debating the value of conservation with a dude from Connecticut who choses to export his toxic boat work to a third world country with weak environmental and worker protection to save a couple of bucks. Seems like a waste of time, no?

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by colemj

It is only like backpackers if you are talking about coastal waters. Nobody has argued for tossing stuff in coastal waters.


Funny how nobody thinks a message in a bottle is littering - those are approached with romance and adventure...

Mark

I put a message in a bottle once. It said, "Save the planet! Quit being a litterbug"

I just wanna know if you all are moral enough to be sailors after being litterbugs...

"KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?"

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
Ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
Sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
Cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women
Kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug."

He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington."

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Delancey

Seems like a waste of time, no?

Yes, you have wasted a lot of people's time.

Mark

[hellosailor]

There's a video on YouTube from some clever soul in some eastern European country where he puts plastic bottles in a gizmo and then proceeds to slit them down into plastic monofilament line, more or less. Very much like taking a piece of tanned hide and turning it into rawhide lashing.

I mention this because other than the rather large value of plastic bottles in places where bottles are not readily to be had, there's been very little in the way of simple ways to 'recycle' plastic bottles. And turning them into lashings, string, rope, fishing line, knitting, etc. by simply turning them in a jog, is incredibly clever and effective. Doesn't need any expensive recycling plants, either.

[Coops]

This the video?

Making string from a plastic bottle. [VIDEO]

Coops.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

there's been very little in the way of simple ways to 'recycle' plastic bottles.

Plastic is rather easily recycled. All water and drink bottles I'm aware of are recyclable and many use recycled materials. The hold up in recycling is simple. It's not cost prohibitive not to do so nor are there huge profits in doing so. Recycle facilities can't handle the need on plastic, paper, metal or anything else. Put a significant deposit on the bottles and you'd see change. The issues with recycling or the lack thereof are not technology but logistics and financial benefit. As an example we recycle some of the most difficult items all the time. Lead acid batteries were a huge problem, but now with laws and financial incentives they end up at lead smelters and, depending on the country, are often 100% recycled with the lead going to new batteries and the plastic being turned into bars or pellets and recycled.

One of the problems is mixed waste. By the time you end up with paper, metal and plastic (and toss in styrofoam which isn't recycled to my knowledge although it may be), they all require different processes. There was a facility built decades ago in Pembroke Pines FL designed to take in all waste and separate it on site. There was some evidence that would be cost effective and much evidence it would result in a larger percent being recycled. However, the neighbors didn't want the facility there and finally they gave up and closed.

Now this is off the topic of trash over board as I don't think anyone here is arguing for tossing plastic overboard. But it is essential to the overall problem. Industry cleaned up their act on water and air pollution when it became financially imperative to do so.

[hellosailor]

Coops-
That's it. I would take a guess at what the language is but I'm sure I'd only insult aty least two nations by getting it crossed.

B-
It may be easily recycled, but that's only if you define "easy" as including a fairly large investment and infrastructure to support it. I can recycle wood easily, with a saw and hand tools. I can recycle iron easily, with some coal and a crucible. But plastic bottles? Tell me, how do you recycle them without an industrial infrastructure?

[Coops]

It's in Russia, so I assume that it's Russian.

Coops.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Coops-
That's it. I would take a guess at what the language is but I'm sure I'd only insult aty least two nations by getting it crossed.

B-
It may be easily recycled, but that's only if you define "easy" as including a fairly large investment and infrastructure to support it. I can recycle wood easily, with a saw and hand tools. I can recycle iron easily, with some coal and a crucible. But plastic bottles? Tell me, how do you recycle them without an industrial infrastructure?

I believe that is exactly what I said. Easy to recycle but not being done because it's not been financially imperative for people to do it. As to plastic bottles though, there are far more recycled than you might realize. In 2011, over 33% were recycled in the US. It's plastic bags and other items doing horribly. There are some small water bottlers using 100% recycled but larger ones can't get enough to do so, nor are they yet compelled financially to do so. Actually the capacity for recycling plastic bottles still exceeds the bottles being returned for recycling.

55% of aluminum beer and soft drink containers are recycled. Nearly 65% of paper products are being recycled. 80% of scrap tires.

Used motor oil is an area moving much too slowly.

Only 25% of consumer electronics are being collected for recycling.

Steel is highly recycled with shredded steel from autos 95% recycled.

As I made clear it's easy in a technological sense. It is difficult logistically. There is a lot of work still to be done. But there is no reason for plastic bottles not to be recycled and the increase in the percentage being done is significant.