Garbage

[IdoraKeeper]

The flip side of good food on board is Garbage!!! I love to cook underway and get a great kick out of an excellent meal as the world slides by. Up to this point limiting garbage has required the elimination of all glass bottles in favor of collapsable containers and limited use of paper products. I end up storing bags of garbage in the dingy for disposal at the next appropriate port. I need to find a better method.

How do you deal with garbage?

Todd

[sabray]

get rid of as much packaging before it comes on board, When ever we go ashore we bring small amounts in. Some more rural boatyards don't mind if you use their dumsters others well. Most places still don't have municipal recycling. so more then anything keep it off the boat, Cans get rinsed before they go into the bag to help keep the smell down.

[chuckr]

this is the biggest complaint from the Admiral -- in the bahamas we opened cans at both ends and sank them in very very deep water - paper was burned on shore at selected locations - some stuff we just kept in plastic bags until we got someplace to get rid of them - we never try to bring glass on board -

chuck patty and svsoulmates
on the hook deltaville va

[osirissail]

Glass is a no-no if it can be avoided. When it cannot I put the bottle into an athletic sock so that it cannot rattle and crash/break when the boat moves. Wine bottles are put into the straight "tube socks" and then they can be stacked or placed up against each other without any problems.
- - Be very careful of liquids, especially liquid soaps, purchases in the store in plastic bottles. Some of the plastics in use are made deliberately "biodegradable" and after about a year the plastic bottle fails and you have a gallon/quart of liquid soap in the bilge. I transfer all long term store bought plastic bottle stuff into stronger kitchen "tupper-ware" type bottles.

[chuckr]

box wine works great -- we took 13 boxes with us last year (and ran out) - no bottles to deal with - actually found out here in cheaspeake some of the bars are using box wine as a house wine --
but stock up before florida - in fla can only get 3 liter boxes but outside fla can get 5 liter boxes --

chuck patty and svsoulmates
on the hook deltaville va

[IdoraKeeper]

Thanks folks, I appreciate all the suggestions. Please keep them comming. I never thought about plastic bottle failure outside of freez dammage. I guess I feel like I am chuming when I am towing the dingy as a garbage scow. Next I will have seagulls following me.

Todd

[Vasco]

We break our glass wine bottles in deep water. Trash including beer cans we burn or drop off where there is a dump.

[Healer52]

We toss glass over in deep water... It's just sand, after all.....

[forsailbyowner]

We have a large topgun bag that hangs off the stern rail. It works so well I thought Id make some up and try ebay. Fat chance, after running multiple auctions at a price that barely covered materials, I gave them away to friends. Anyway it is held on rail with a flap with 3 commonsense fasteners, has a handle on bottom for emptying into dumpsters and easily holds a months worth of trash. drawstring closure. To clean it we just invert it and hang it in water overnight.

[Marksman]

Don't bother breaking the glass bottles, just sink them, small animals can make their home in them. I have done many clean up dives on arificial fishing reefs and was told to leave any bottles as it's good for the residents. I don't know how deep of water this can apply to but unbroken glass in no worse than broken.

My .02

[SimonV]

Plastic always goes back to shore, everything else is over the side in deep water.

[Minggat]

Not intended as thread drift. I feel this is very related.

Trash/rubbish/garbage that has been carefully stored while your waiting to get to a "responsible" spot to dispose of it, does not (maybe, rarely?) make it's way to a landfill.

Im my experience, there are times when locals with come by to collect your trash (and a fee), which they then dispose of by throwing into whatever spot works for them. Landfills are for more wealthy countries.

I'm thinking that those plasctic bags we try to be so careful about have a good chance of finding their way into the water with very little effort.

So the problem starts with buying packaged goods. It's a tough one.

[Bash]

back in the days before I turned into a rabid environmentalist, I used to toss glass bottles overboard when the seas were calm and use the bottles for target practice. I always figured that it didn't matter if I missed, they'd sink soon enough anyway.

Oops. Didn't mean to turn this into another gun thread.

[SimonV]

A lot of rubbish in the island groups does not go to land fill, but ground up and put on a barge that is taken well out to sea and dumped. I still worry about plastics.

[matauwhi]

G'day, mates. We wash the plastic and cut it into small plieces for disposal later ashore. We are down to generating about a 1/2 cubic foot / week using the above mentioned techniques. Cheers.