Disposing of domestic rubbish at sea

I'm surprised at some of the replies on this thread. I am in no way an eco-mentalist...in fact I'll often go and take a drive in a six cylinder petrol car just for the sheer hell of it...and I will come back guilt free with a grin on my face. But I don't think I could ever start lobbing glass bottles over the side...just the thought of a bottle of wine landing on little Nemo's head and then staying there on the bottom of the sea seems awful.

My boat and my time means it's only short hops for me. Teabags, waste food, apple cores and ashes from the BBQ as well as the loo waste (used and flushed thoughtfully) will usually go over the side, everything else comes back.

I think what I find a bit odd are these tales of dumping all this stuff mid ocean. Surely, the best thing to do is to repackage everything before you go? I do blame the supermarkets and the packaging industry for the ridiculous mountain of waste we have to endure, and it's good to see packaging free supermarkets springing up.

Last time we sailed down to Studland for a BBQ, we took all of the meat out of it's blister packs and polystyrene trays, put it in bags, ditched the packaging ashore and compressed the stowage size down to about 25% of what we started with, and this is important on a 27' boat! If I had a big boat doing long passages, there's not really any excuse not to have everything in freezer bags, storage nets, Tupperware boxes etc. I really can't see why people are having to lob loads of glass over the side, or why you'd even want all that weight, fragilty, and injury risk on board in the first place. And in the obvious case of alcohol, you finish your bottle of wine/gin/rum, why can't you just rinse the bottle out and put it back in the booze locker?
 
Iain C said:
I'm surprised at some of the replies on this thread. I am in no way an eco-mentalist...in fact I'll often go and take a drive in a six cylinder petrol car just for the sheer hell of it...and I will come back guilt free with a grin on my face. But I don't think I could ever start lobbing glass bottles over the side...just the thought of a bottle of wine landing on little Nemo's head and then staying there on the bottom of the sea seems awful.

My boat and my time means it's only short hops for me. Teabags, waste food, apple cores and ashes from the BBQ as well as the loo waste (used and flushed thoughtfully) will usually go over the side, everything else comes back.

I think what I find a bit odd are these tales of dumping all this stuff mid ocean. Surely, the best thing to do is to repackage everything before you go? I do blame the supermarkets and the packaging industry for the ridiculous mountain of waste we have to endure, and it's good to see packaging free supermarkets springing up.

Last time we sailed down to Studland for a BBQ, we took all of the meat out of it's blister packs and polystyrene trays, put it in bags, ditched the packaging ashore and compressed the stowage size down to about 25% of what we started with, and this is important on a 27' boat! If I had a big boat doing long passages, there's not really any excuse not to have everything in freezer bags, storage nets, Tupperware boxes etc. I really can't see why people are having to lob loads of glass over the side, or why you'd even want all that weight, fragilty, and injury risk on board in the first place. And in the obvious case of alcohol, you finish your bottle of wine/gin/rum, why can't you just rinse the bottle out and put it back in the booze locker?
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How about Ocean sailing, what would you propose in that situation
 
Sailorman...I don't really see what the difference is? Why can't you ditch unnecessary packaging before you go and provision sensibly in the first place? I totally agree that the boat must be kept 100% healthy and clean, but just because a bit of packaging is now "used" it doesn't mean it should automatically go over the side. People are quite happy to lug tons of cruising gear around the oceans that they might never use, it doesn't mean that just because a bottle is empty it now needs to be instantly removed from the boat.

I've never done any ocean sailing so I might be being very naive here. However I have sailed an Open 60 with a Vendee skipper, and whilst your average blue water cruiser might want more culinary variety than endless freeze dried whatever I do remember that skipper having a very environmentally aware method of provisioning the boat. And they don't tend to stop...for 3 months!
 
oldharry said:
Time it takes for garbage to decompose in the environment:


Glass Bottle.......................... 1 million years
Monofilament Fishing Line… 600 years
Plastic Beverage Bottles…… 450 years
Disposable Diapers………… 450 years
Aluminum Can..................... 80-200 years
Foamed Plastic Buoy……… 80 years
Foamed Plastic Cups……… 50 years
Rubber-Boot Sole............... 50-80 years
Tin Cans……………………. 50 years
Leather................................. 50 years
Nylon Fabric........................ 30-40 years
Plastic Film Container........ 20-30 years
Plastic Bag.......................... 10-20 years
Cigarette Butt...................... 1-5 years
Wool Sock............................ 1-5 years
Plywood…………………….. 1-3 years
Waxed Milk Carton………… 3 months
Apple Core…………………. 2 months
Newspaper………………….. 6 weeks
Orange or Banana Peel...... 2-5 weeks
Paper Towel……………….. 2-4 weeks



Information Source: U.S. National Park Service; Mote Marine Lab, Sarasota, FL.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Average waste natural degradation time in the Sea:

Chewing-gum (5 years)
An aluminium can for drinks (500 years)
A polystyrene case (between 100 and 1000 years)
Telephone and top-ups cards (1000 years)
A cigarette end (2-5 years)
An apple core (3-6 months)
Matches (6 months)
Newspapers and magazines (2 months)
A glass bottle (1000 years)
A plastic bottle or bag (1000 years)
Plastic lighter (100-1000 years)
A disposable diaper (about 200 years)
Cotton or woollen garments (8-10 months)
Paper tissues and napkins (3 months)
Synthetic fabrics (500 years)
A banana skin (2 years)
(source: www.legambienteonline.it)

Still want to chuck it OB?

The first list is official American rubbish in the 'environment' i.e presumably on land

The second is an environmentalist take on garbage at sea. Some interesting variations. Polysterene foam is claimed 'never' to degrade, and many authorities rate it at 1million years+, which when you see how much is already in the water is a bit worrying.
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A biologist friend of mine told me that plastics don't really degrade at all. They are broken down to ever smaller fragments. These fragments then act as hormones within fish dramatically damaging their reproductive capacity.
 
Iain C said:
Sailorman...I don't really see what the difference is? Why can't you ditch unnecessary packaging before you go and provision sensibly in the first place? I totally agree that the boat must be kept 100% healthy and clean, but just because a bit of packaging is now "used" it doesn't mean it should automatically go over the side. People are quite happy to lug tons of cruising gear around the oceans that they might never use, it doesn't mean that just because a bottle is empty it now needs to be instantly removed from the boat.

I've never done any ocean sailing so I might be being very naive here. However I have sailed an Open 60 with a Vendee skipper, and whilst your average blue water cruiser might want more culinary variety than endless freeze dried whatever I do remember that skipper having a very environmentally aware method of provisioning the boat. And they don't tend to stop...for 3 months!
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As far as packaging is concerned, you are quite right - it was on the boat before you ate the contents, so you must have had space for it. I suppose that dumping unnecessary weight might help you go a bit faster, but it seems likely that any difference will be too small to measure. Food waste is a different thing - you certainly do not want things festering and giving you food poisoning on a long passage.
 
I must admit that I'm a little surprised that people are happy to lob cans and bottles over the side. I enjoy the sea as it is and, whilst a few bottles are unlikely to have a massive affect, i would prefer to leave it as I found it.
 
mjcoon said:
A gyre must have a handedness, so maybe a footedness, too!
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Of course! :) And the others of the pairs would tend to end up, eventually, in the opposite hemisphere. An eminently testable hypothesis.

It was the 1970's but I don't remember if it was the Atlantic or Pacific, and the great ocean garbage patches hadn't yet attracted much media attention.
 
Rigger Mortice said:
I must admit that I'm a little surprised that people are happy to lob cans and bottles over the side. I enjoy the sea as it is and, whilst a few bottles are unlikely to have a massive affect, i would prefer to leave it as I found it.
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The planet is made of about 15% silicon (bottles) and 32% iron (cans) so you would be putting them back really.

Whether to 'lob' them, that's up to you. I carelessly toss them myself, after all the sea is not a person who might be offended by the wrist action.

There are lots of hungry mouths waiting for anything edible, so that can go over the side as well, the fish will be grateful.

Plastic can stay on board because it is bad for sea life, so it stays on board.

MARPOL comes ahead of these however.
 
jerrytug said:
The planet is made of about 15% silicon (bottles) and 32% iron (cans) so you would be putting them back really.

Whether to 'lob' them, that's up to you. I carelessly toss them myself, after all the sea is not a person who might be offended by the wrist action.

There are lots of hungry mouths waiting for anything edible, so that can go over the side as well, the fish will be grateful.

Plastic can stay on board because it is bad for sea life, so it stays on board.

MARPOL comes ahead of these however.
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there may well still 32% of iron within our planet BUT its more spread about if cans a "lobbed" into the sea. Far better to recycle it rather than waste it for ever.
Then there is lost shipping containers, they would take quite a few beer cans just to make one of the 500 Mearsk lost a few weeks ago
 
My thought process is that I will always take everything home with me unless I am absolutely convinced that it won't persist for more that a few hours (i.e. that crabs will eat it) and that even then it can't reach ch shore and be unsightly. In practice this means that everything, except very soft plate scrapings (sauces, gravy) goes home.

As regards dumping packaging on long sea passages I'm afraid I don't see any reason to do so. Meat packaging can be washed and then squashed. I have a can crusher mounted to a plank that I use to make empties much smaller. Anyway, if it all fitted in the boat on when full it surely fits in the boat when empty.
 
On long passages I throw food scraps and biodegradable stuff overboard. I also puncture tins and throw them ob as well. I won't throw aluminum cans ob because I believe that aluminum doesn't occur naturally (someone will tell me I'm wrong). I keep glass jars as I find them useful for painting and varnishing and I use them in place of tupperware. I tend to end up with about 30 glass jars then I put them next to bins (unless I can find recycling bins) and locals tend to take them. When I do a stock up for a voyage I remove as much packaging as possible at the supermarket and leave it for them to dispose of.
 
Tricia said:
... I won't throw aluminum cans ob because I believe that aluminum doesn't occur naturally (someone will tell me I'm wrong).
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Not wrong (aluminium, per UK, doesn't either). That's because it is very reactive and only the oxide layer makes it appear permanent. (C.f. stainless steel.)

(I don't suppose kids today are allowed to scratch Al through a blob of Hg and watch it oxidise.)

But not sure why that should make a difference; the aluminium has been produced from "natural" ores...

Mike.
 
Re. Metals, there is some confusion here between 'native' and 'natural'. All metals are natural. Unreactive metals (like gold and silver) are found as just that in the earth, I.e in 'native' form, because they do not easily react with other minerals during rock-forming processes. Reactive metals (like aluminum and iron) are found as ores, because they combine with other minerals during the rock forming process.

Re. Glass, it will of course be ground down in waters which are agitated with sufficient force to move, tumble and break an object with the density of the glass piece in question. This is why you see polished glass pieces on a beach, and consversely the reason you see such pieces is because the waters are not powerful enough to diminish them in size any further. On average, only rivers are likely to grind rock or glass to sand, because they flow down a huge potential energy gradient and the work done in a river to reduce particle size far exceeds that done on a beach for a given period of time. In any case, the energy of the bottom waters of an ocean is nothing or next to nothing, and none of this applies to glass that sinks to the bottom far offshore.
 
Interesting the decomposition time for aluminium cans, maybe given the problems people have with out drives they should be made with recycled drink cans.
 
Vara said:
Interesting the decomposition time for aluminium cans, maybe given the problems people have with out drives they should be made with recycled drink cans.
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I'm sceptical about claims for long life of aluminium cans in a marine environment. It is certainly pretty resilient to fresh water, but salt water seems to get through it quite quickly.
 
maby said:
I'm sceptical about claims for long life of aluminium cans in a marine environment. It is certainly pretty resilient to fresh water, but salt water seems to get through it quite quickly.
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Salt water promotes oxidization. So oxygenated salt water is very corrosive to reactive metals. Poorly oxygenated salt water is not. The surface waters of the oceans are well oxygenated. The deep waters, on average, are not.
 
We never threw anything overboard less than 100 miles offshore, if we were close to shore we wouldn't throw anything overboard. Our rule was no plastic but everything else, bottles will sink fast but we punched holes in tins so they sank quickly too.
 
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