Disposal of old boats

K

kathy_stevenson

New Member
Joined
12 Mar 2006
Messages
1
Visit site
Hi,

I'm just starting my MSc dissertation on the disposal of waste fibreglass boats (this being once they have reached the end of their useful life) /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif, based around the Solent area.

There is not much information about options for owners or any specific legislation. I would be really interested (and happy!) to hear of any user's experiences or stories they have heard - i.e. just left in boat yards, sunk, sent to landfill, sold for ornamental use etc..

Your help would be much appreciated!!
Thanks, Kathy /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
It's been discussed a few times on here and no-one (as far as I can remember) had any definite facts about it.
The problem is one that older boat owners (boat, not owner) do think about. The back of boat yards and chainsaws/council tips seem about as good as it gets, other than scuttling of course. Unless you can sell it to some optimist as a "project"
It would be handy if you came back when you had some information and let us in on the facts.
If you try a search on Old boats, dead grp, disposing of boats and other sorts of subjects you may find the previous threads.
 
Kathy
There have been a couple of threads on this in the past. We seemed to come to the conclusion that there is at present no simple legal way of doing it. Cutting them up and putting them in a skip was all we came up with. Not really practical for larger boats tho I must admit we have done it to old dinghies. There is a real need for such a service. There are lots of old boats in the upper reaches of Portsmouth harbour area hanging on moorings or cluttering up club premises. There are at least three in our club fit only for disposal. The high cost of moorings will soon mean that many old boats are just not worth keeping and can't even be given away- but we don't know what to do with them.
 
The idea of towing them out to the 100m line and letting them sink might sound like environmental vandalism - but is it really? Hundreds of ships, boats and aircraft fell to the bottom of the Channel during the war and most of them are still there quietly acting as homes for countless crabs, lobsters, congers, pouting etc.

And its a very big area!

It might even act as a mild deterrent to the seriously unsustainable trawling "industry".
 
Concrete can be recycled, it is ground up and used a ballast in new concrete.

I see no reason why grp should not be treatable in a similar way.

I keep a tin of grp shavings/filings which I find makes a very satisfactory filler when mixed with a little resin; it is good for filling grp, e.g. for stopping up redundant holes, etc. and is stronger than a putty type filler.
 
In the US they have started this on a small experimental scale ; strip the boat completely , then the GRP hull is ground up and used as a filler with tarmac in road building.
It is an expensive process.

It has been suggested that boat hulls have a " reclamation tax" put on them at the outset which would be repaid to the final owner if he did the above.
Can't remember the references to the above - read about it in a yachty mag when last over there.
good luck
 
Maybe I'm treading a worn path here, but have you enquired with the local authorities, waste disposal companies, boat manufacturers and Dept of the Environment?
By the way This Site may be of interest to forumites as it deals with ground-up FRP for use in the construction industry.
 
It might be worth you having a look at the "End-of-Life Vehicles" Directive (2000/53/EC). This applies to cars (obviously not boats) but there is a very similar problem in the motor industry - several thousand old Reliants out there made of fibreglass (not to mention TVRs Lotuses and many kit cars) which will one day reach the end of their working lives. I don't know a great deal about it but I gather that incinerating them (with the appropriate filters and traps on the incinerators) would yield a fair amount of energy. Other than that, I gather various people have ground them up and used the powder as a bulking agent in cheap, low-grade body fillers. I believe it has also been used (more coarsely ground and mixed with new resin) to make things like park benches and phone boxes but the "bottom line" is that it isn't economically viable yet. Another problem would be in getting the boat down to just fibreglass. Mine, for example, has an encapsulated lead keel - that'll be fun to get the lead out of if the boat is ever scrapped! Lots of other boats are of "sandwich" construction so you might have to separate the "core" materials used. I believe the DTI is the UK body looking after the ELV directive.
 
"Other than that, I gather various people have ground them up and used the powder as a bulking agent in cheap, low-grade body fillers."

McDonald might be interested.
JJTOP
 
Speaking of taking the boat out and sinkinng it.... The fashion of late here in Oz is to take ships out and sink them with or without the aid of explosives so that they form coral reef/dive sites. I am talking steel ships of destroyer type size. Apparentlt they are more valuable to the tourist industry than they are worth for scrap metal. So why not a heap oof old fibreglass dumped on the bottom to start the formation of a coral reef? olewill
 
Re: Disposal of old boats - depends on construction material

Wooden boats of course die their death "naturally" with decay and usually a "match" to start the fire.
Ferro boats disntegrate and the ferro reinforcement rusts away.

GRP on the other hand has an extremely long life and could in theory go on for 100's of years ... so the disposal of old GRP boats is a real headache to solve. The material is tough and difficult to break down. You can butn it -0 but then you are left with a charred hulk of dangerous fibrous matt ... and of course the envoronmental damage of the resin burning ... so on large scale is a green issue.

I would hazard a guess that no-one wants to be the one to come up with an answer .. it being a "hot-potato" ... So generally they sit and sit and sit at back of boat yards, dried out on shingle beaches, left in mud-berths etc ..... owners apparently ignoring the issue.

Sooner or later someone is going to have to come up with a solution ... boats are being built on production lines now .. increasing the pressure on the industry to find space .....
 
Glassfibre boat construction on a large scale only really got underway in the 60's, though there are some examples that predate this. This means that the vast majority of GRP boats are under forty years old, which, in boaty terms, is quite young.

The various parts that go to make up a boat e.g. sails, engines, masts, electronic gear, ground tackle have a finite life but are easily replaced - further prolonging the life of the hull.

The problem of how to tackle the disposal of GRP boats has yet to be solved.
 
A bit off topic perhaps, but I saw some ace photos of the sinking of the RNZN frigate 'Wellington' recently (to provide just such a dive site):



Many others in that same pool.

Rick
 
most stick 'em on ebay... where i buy them paint them and sell them on.

GRP or any MMMF's for that matter are a longer term problem.

i'm not aware of any process that will successfully decompose these materials. longer term there will be an issue with disposal options, much in the same way as asbestos containing materials, bakalite etc.

perhaps someone will come up with a process of delaminating/chopping and reforming GRP into a moulding material. as recycling may be the only option.

wait for someone to suggest a surcharge on GRP materials to faqcilitate their disposal at end of life.

steve.
 
Without the keel old grp boats would make good housing for some people,already with wc galley beds and solid shelter possible use as emergency accomodation,people are converting old containers to houses why not old boats?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top