Disposing of waste in paradise

Apart from all other considerations of dumping stuff, I reckon a lot of people go to 'paradises' like this to snorkel and dive. A seabed littered with cans and bottles is just as untidy as orange peel on the beach in my view.

If they are diving down hundreds of metres then they might see some junk and I agree that in shallow water or anchorages it would be antisocial but not harmful so best not done.


So legislation is just an opinion?

Of course it is and so often rules are based on consensus or political consideration not evidence. The interesting part is how they arrived at that conclusion and therefore what a rational view should be not the conclusion itself.


If you can get stuff TO the boat, surely you must be able to get it FROM the boat? No need to take it home, just to somewhere where it can be disposed of in a reasonable and lawful way.

I don't really know what you mean by this. I buy stuff from a shop and have to dispose of bits of packaging along the way. I could keep plastics scrunched up until it can go to a village tip to be burnt bulldozed or dropped at sea whilst being ingested by rats and seagulls (or even recycled but I very much doubt it) and I have not control over that. I could also dump food, glass and tins in deep water a mile or three offshore and nothing said or posted here implies any harm in that but I am open to learning.
 
RupertW said:
I don't really know what you mean by this. I buy stuff from a shop and have to dispose of bits of packaging along the way. I could keep plastics scrunched up until it can go to a village tip to be burnt bulldozed or dropped at sea whilst being ingested by rats and seagulls (or even recycled but I very much doubt it) and I have not control over that. I could also dump food, glass and tins in deep water a mile or three offshore and nothing said or posted here implies any harm in that but I am open to learning.
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Not sure which 'first world country' you sail in, but in mine 73 percent of all metal (aluminium and steel) tins and cans were recycled in 2015. Corresponding numbers for glass jars and bottles 94 percent,
cardboard and paper packaging 80 percent, plastic packaging over 40 percent.
For beverage cans and bottles (aluminium and PET) carrying a deposit 84 percent were recycled.

Of course, it was not always like this. Took some nasty green eco warriors to get it going....;)
 
BabaYaga said:
Not sure which 'first world country' you sail in, but in mine 73 percent of all metal (aluminium and steel) tins and cans were recycled in 2015. Corresponding numbers for glass jars and bottles 94 percent,
cardboard and paper packaging 80 percent, plastic packaging over 40 percent.
For beverage cans and bottles (aluminium and PET) carrying a deposit 84 percent were recycled.

Of course, it was not always like this. Took some nasty green eco warriors to get it going....;)
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Greece, Italy, Croatia mostly on islands. If they declare those levels of recycling from undifferentiated tips I would be a bit cynical.
 
BabaYaga said:
No, those figures stem from separation at source. Like you already do with your plastics...
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Fair enough but even the plastics then go into the undifferentiated village dumps or marina skips which occasionally but not often have recycling options.
 
RupertW said:
Fair enough but even the plastics then go into the undifferentiated village dumps or marina skips which occasionally but not often have recycling options.
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Dumping stuff at sea, even well out, is unlikely to be a driver for improvement in this respect IMHO.
 
BabaYaga said:
Dumping stuff at sea, even well out, is unlikely to be a driver for improvement in this respect IMHO.
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Nor is eating digestives with my coffee as my actions make no difference to local recycling policy. I would still love to understand what harm cans or glass do if dumped in deep water. I never did dump plastics but the evidence there would have convinced me pronto to change habits and this thread mentioned that many tins are lined with plastic so that's a new no-no to me as it's easy to check.
 
RupertW said:
I would still love to understand what harm cans or glass do if dumped in deep water.
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As per my first post to this thread, I simply find that recycling is a much better idea. It is not just the possible harm to biological life or the untidiness, which can be variable I'm sure, but also the energy aspect.
It is true that many countries have a long way to go regarding recycling. What can change that? Only the concerns and attitudes of a sufficiently large part of the public. I'm sure tourism has a role to play here too. Perhaps even boat tourism (but not so sure when reviewing some of the posts to this thread).
 
Prasutigus said:
Yes it's a great idea, plenty of homes for little critters, and it will either corrode away before the heat death of the solar system, or it won't, who cares?
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I care.
I care because it looks like a scummy disgusting tip.
I take a pragmatic approach, (see previous post) but the one thing which makes me want to drain my sump oil into the oggin and pick up my dolphin harpoon is holier-than-thou, tsk-tsking greens.

Happy New Year.
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"tsk-tsking"? No, more like pointing and shouting to all that can hear "look at that filthy tramp"
 
BabaYaga said:
As per my first post to this thread, I simply find that recycling is a much better idea. It is not just the possible harm to biological life or the untidiness, which can be variable I'm sure, but also the energy aspect.
It is true that many countries have a long way to go regarding recycling. What can change that? Only the concerns and attitudes of a sufficiently large part of the public. I'm sure tourism has a role to play here too. Perhaps even boat tourism (but not so sure when reviewing some of the posts to this thread).
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Its all very well sitting there in a smug developed country with a well developed sense of green superiority but I asked what would we do in somewhere like the San Blas islands where they exist just above subsistance level. Where there isnt anywhere to deal with re cycling.
Stu
 
skipper_stu said:
Its all very well sitting there in a smug developed country with a well developed sense of green superiority but I asked what would we do in somewhere like the San Blas islands where they exist just above subsistance level. Where there isnt anywhere to deal with re cycling.
Stu
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Indeed. After a recent Pacific crossing, I kept all our plastic waste in bin bags in the anchor locker. Was duly ditched ashore in Nuku Hiva. I have absolutely no idea what happened to it after that but I suspect little in the way of recycling was involved.

Googling waste disposal in Tahiti gives an idea of the scale of the problem. That's not from a handful of yachts, but by the local population.
 
skipper_stu said:
Its all very well sitting there in a smug developed country with a well developed sense of green superiority but I asked what would we do in somewhere like the San Blas islands where they exist just above subsistance level. Where there isnt anywhere to deal with re cycling.
Stu
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Yes I know what your original question was about, but threads like these move on. The post you are quoting was part of a discussion with RupertW, who brought up the subject of waste management in countries like Italy, Croatia and Greece:

RupertW said:
I can't take stuff home from the boat even in a first world country so my options are to dump the harmless stuff in deep water or bung it into a village tip which will be burnt, bulldozed or tipped out to sea, plastic and all.
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BabaYaga said:
Yes I know what your original question was about, but threads like these move on. The post you are quoting was part of a discussion with RupertW, who brought up the subject of waste management in countries like Italy, Croatia and Greece:
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Even Greece is iffy, the last time I was there the countryside from Prevesa down Lefkas Island was littered to the point of crazyness with discarded PET water bottles, those didnt come from yotties.
Stu
 
I have a one litre jar in my cockpit with a bit of laquer thinner in, for styrofoam trays. Break them up and jam them in ,then put the lid back on, and they disolve and shrink, until a years supply of them doesn't even fill a litre bottle. Gasoline also works, but slower. If you open the jar later, and it is not all disolved, add a bit more thiner. As fumes will disolve styrofoam, it doesn't take much thinner.When it is full, leave the lid off and let the thinner evaporate.
My wood stove reduces my garbage output drastically . In summer and the tropics, my barbecue on my rail does the job.
The most important thing with plastic is make sure it doesn't end up in the ocean. Buried on land has far less environmental impact. Out of UV ,it can take centuries to break down. I take plastic I find floating, ashore. It can be greatly compacted.
 
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The Russians, having very poor bitumen for pavement, have to constantly do a lot of repair work on their highways .
Lately ,they have found a way to convert used plastic into pellets, which they add to pavement, giving it a 200 year lifespan.
Seems they need a huge amount of it, and will take what the Chinese will no longer take.
 
So...how long are these cruisers in the San Blas Islands before they head back to 'civilization?

We often go up to 8 weeks with all plastic waste retained on board and I can see no reason one couldn't go longer.
Some plastic just looks after itself eg empty Schweppes Tonic bottles, juice bottles and the like just get restowed where they came from. General plastic waste goes into wide mouthed 2 litre juice bottles. Things like UHT milk cartons get cut into strips before going into the bottles. The handle of a wooden spoon or similar is used to compact the contents as you go... we get at least a week's waste to a bottle. Vegetable matter and other food scraps go over the side offshore. Cans and bottles are ballasted down and scuttled in over 100 metres but there is no reason you can't wash them and stow them back where they were before. Cardboard usually goes into the sea when offshore.
 
To Frank Holden, I was wondering about cardboard, I don't really know what's in it.
Apart from that, I have the same approach as you. What do you ballast cans with? I just tear them or stab them and they sink.
 
Brent Swain said:
The Russians, having very poor bitumen for pavement, have to constantly do a lot of repair work on their highways .
Lately ,they have found a way to convert used plastic into pellets, which they add to pavement, giving it a 200 year lifespan.
Seems they need a huge amount of it, and will take what the Chinese will no longer take.
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A short length of road here in Galloway (between Dumfries and Lockerbie) has been experimentally surfaced with something involving plastic chips. It's difficult to tell if it's working, because the finish from new was abysmally bad.
 
Prasutigus said:
To Frank Holden, I was wondering about cardboard, I don't really know what's in it.
Apart from that, I have the same approach as you. What do you ballast cans with? I just tear them or stab them and they sink.
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I fill/ballast the bottles with seawater.... and spike the cans.

Cardboard is an issue as some is 'plasticised' and can't go over.... and the rest probably takes a long time to biodegrade. But we don't have that much... mainly empty beer boxes :) .... anyway it can all be packed flat and retained on board. It was aboard before you took the cans out so it can stay aboard after the cans have been consumed. One thing I have never ever had is cockroach issues with cardboard... maybe thats a tropical thing?
 
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