Corrosive Teak cleaner direct into the solent

Ballistix

Ballistix

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www.cinematreadwell.com
I've been thinking of moving my boat to Hamble, the MDL dry stack there, my boat is there at the moment and we've spend the weekend looking around. Yesterday, to my horror, I watched a couple of blokes (a commercial outfit) scrubbing a teak deck on a nice big 50 foot sailing yacht. On closer inspection they were using a very corrosive cleaner that was being swept down the boat and off the end directly into the water. I was having trouble with my conscience. Do I say anything?

After a few minutes I thought I should really say something to the Marina office to get their view, on speaking with one of the blokes from the office and pointing at the work taking place, literally below the office window, he said he would investigate. At that moment in time the "owner, leader, head honcho" turned up and starting shouting at the guys to not miss anything and go over a piece they had missed. The fella from MDL called up this chap and asked him about the corrosive cleaner. He basically bullshited and said it was bio friendly yada yada.

I decided to kind of leave it, it's down to MDL, in all accounts it sounded like this was quite common.

I actually came away feeling quite disgusted. It's bad enough running a "stink boat" but I am a clean boater and I pay through the nose for my hobby. But to see this blatant disregard for marine life and the basic state of the water and its life really knocked me back.

Not sure if there is a response to this really, just wanted people to know!

Regards,
T
 
What were they using then? It must be possible to locate a safety data sheet for it.
 
a similar matter has been raised in previous posts: - the use of mould killer to remove green algal growths from decks and ropes.

There's a whole part of the marine industry (owners, service companies, marinas) which needs to co-ordinate action against the use of environmentally damaging chemicals.


Perhaps a start would be to ask what MDL's environmental policies are. I know that their Thames people seem to be responsible, and responsive.

Maybe this is something that should be explored in depth by one of our fearlessly investigative magazines ?
 
Anything corrosive enough to clean teak is not going to do the teak or other parts of the boat any good in the long run, so the owner will end up paying eventually!

Bear in mind that whatever they were using is already being diluted many fold by the freshwater used to sluice it off the deck. By the time it makes it into the river, the dilution would be measured in parts per billion, so unless it is extremely toxic (in which case I doubt it would be on public sale), it's unlikely to have even a local effect.
 
All I saw was a serious amount of brown crap being dumped off the back of the boat. I'm pretty sure that it would be significantly worse than single parts per billion frankly. I reckon it was a very strong mix.
 
If it was the Wessex product, much of the 'crap' is dirt which has been released from the teak, and which got there through atmospheric pollution. Thus it is stuff which would have gone into the water anyway if the boat hadn't got in the way. More will be algae growth, hardly uncommon in marine ecosystems. Much of the rest will be abraded teak, and there's plenty of wood derivative finding its way into the river naturally from trees and bushes in the catchment. A few decagrams of teak particles are going to have no effect.

What you have to be concerned about are the active chemicals in the product. Some of these will have been neutralised in doing their job on the teak, but some may end up in the river in their active form. It's these which may be damaging, and which will be very diluted as soon as they hit the water.

I'm not trying to condone deliberate pollution, but to point out that things might look very much worse than they are. Why not contact Wessex Chemicals and ask what the active ingredients in their teak cleaner are, and what their effects are on estuarine flora and fauna?
 
MOst of the gunge and brown water would have been there chemical or no chemical. The water looks pretty grotty when I wash my decks with nothing but hose water... Results of airborne pollution.

Chances are you are putting more pollution in the river from your self abrading antifoul especially when you scub or wash the hull... Mind you this HAS been picked up on and no doubt we will soon have to collect all the washings and stop using antifoul in the long run /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

It would be interesting to see what this product is however their other products are biological and similar to those that the Headmistress originally formulated in Atlanta, so maybe they sit on the fence.
 
Not wanting to be unfriendly here but how do you know that it was a "highly toxic" chemical when you arent sure what it was? But even if you did know what it was, and its chemical make up, are you good enough at chemistry to know what effect it would have. I did S level chemistry and I wouldnt even try.

This post reminds me of the H&S cr*p we all get these days when someone says "you cant do that mate - health and safety" when in reality they are quoting buzz words rather than something they are qualified to talk about. For example, the operators down at our local dumpit wouldnt take a small quantity of diesel (with the lurgy) into their oil tank - "diesel isnt oil mate. not allowed that - against H&S". Yes - right!

The legal responsibility for pollution discharge at the site is the marina owner and if you were concerned the people to talk to after MDL would be the environment agency who have hot lines and do sometimes react..
 
[ QUOTE ]
how do you know that it was a "highly toxic" chemical

[/ QUOTE ] A good question. The materials mentioned appear to be labelled either "corrosive" or "irritant", no mention of them being "toxic" or "harmful to the environment" It is a pity though that neither the Safety Data Sheets nor the Product Data Sheets are available from the website but in theory anyone using the products should have been supplied with them.
I would like to think that anything supplied as a deck cleaner to the marine industry is not harmful to the marine environment but without access to those data sheets one cannot be certain.
 
Yottie, not sure if your post is aimed at me or not, I've never said "Highly Toxic" or insinuated that I knew much of Chemistry old chap. I'm offering up a mildly anecdotal observation and have verified that it was the Wessex product.

I was in fact asking what people felt and their views. Feel free to rib me with the H&S BS if you like. I have many farming friends here that also get tied down in governmental red tape and completely sympathise with your point. I am not, however, an officious little git who just wants to stir it up.

Regards,
T
 
Several years ago, I had a can of 3 litres of highly toxic stuf called "TBT" (remember it?) As it had become illegal to use it on small boats (but not on big ones surprisingly), I wanted to dispose of it safely. As I was at that time lecturing in environmental physice in a depertment that dealt with environmental health and polution, I too my query to my head of department, who was the resident expert on chemical polutants. His advice was to ensure that it was dispersed a much as possible, as it is in concentrated form that it is damaging to the environment. His theory was that considerable damage was being done by people thinking they were being responsible and creatintg large dumps of concentrated nasties.

So I used it for its original purpose: antifouling.
 
Albtert, probably the right answer. I'm feeling kind of stupid now for bringing this up. Why did it take me to notice this? I'm relatively new to boating and found it plain wrong. There is either a will to make sure we do what we can to minimise such behaviour or not, H&S comments aside, we all have a duty to make sure a balance between our enjoyment and looking after our environment is struck.

T
 
[ QUOTE ]
Why did it take me to notice this? I'm relatively new to boating and found it plain wrong. There is either a will to make sure we do what we can to minimise such behaviour or not, H&S comments aside, we all have a duty to make sure a balance between our enjoyment and looking after our environment is struck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps because others are focusing on bigger problems? Whilst the water companies are still pumping raw sewage into the sea, I'd suggest that a tiny amount of highly diluted oxalic acid is probably less of a problem. Do you think, for instance, that its worse than the amount of washing up liquid that goes in from boats? Or those boats without holding tanks for their toilets?

Rick
 
I suspect the teak cleaner was made of two minor components, a detergent for cleaning and oxalic acid for bightening, and a major one - water. Assume a 10% solutionSay a gallon of the cleaner in a cubic metre of water and you are down to 0.005% assuming none of it was "used up". Even at this concntration you would need a reasonably good analysis to find it. I doubt whether there is a srious problem.
 
I guess it's the cumulative of all of the things you mention that makes me start to get a bit more despondent. Each and every part making the whole of the problem so to speak..

Human nature.

T
 
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