Garbage Management Ideas

[AlaskaProf]

We're arriving on the 31st, staying on boat in Tacoma; probably show on 1st and 2nd. Depart 4th.

 

[gaston]

View attachment 60194

For zero waste beer option, get a growler(s) and refill when you stop at marinas. This is a substantial upgrade from glass bottles with screw tops. Got it at REI and it also comes in 128oz size with a tap option. Keeps the beer fresh and cold between marinas.

128oz???? you only have the one or one each PMSL
Thats 10 cans wouldn't last to morning tea on a hot day

 

[CPseudonym]

Anyone consider a TF meet-up at the Seattle Boat Show? My wife and I have talked about going but haven't decided yet. I need to slow down the rate of spending on my boat.

My wife told me I'm spending too much money on real estate right now but that should all be back in balance by next years Seattle Boat Show. But if by some miracle I do make it up for this years I'm down for a TF meet up.

 

[GFC]

Our boat came with a trash compactor and it works well. We don't put bottles or other non-compressible items into it, but most garbage and trash does well in it. We have spent a week and a half on the boat and the compactor handled all of it in one bag.

 

[BandB]

Our boat came with a trash compactor and it works well. We don't put bottles or other non-compressible items into it, but most garbage and trash does well in it. We have spent a week and a half on the boat and the compactor handled all of it in one bag.

It's amazing how little space compacted trash ends up taking.

 

[kev_rm]

caricature from this starts to look when cut down waste, fertilizers and the like filth into the sea. Here baltic sea blue-green algal blooms for a few weeks and, at worst, it looks like this. thaks Russian people, their industry and other **** like. rivers flows along the Baltic Sea. Something improvements have been made, but clearance will last a really long time


Although we have the sea here, the water does not change and we do not have the tide. waste in the ocean it causes eutrophication, therefore, forbidden to you, maybe

This is caused by nitrates. No amount of compostable organic material would cause this.

 

[O C Diver]

I applaud OC Diver's recycling, but how many marina's then have you run across set up for recycling? And why is it in most cities, including FLL, that there are two weekly pickups for garbage and only one for recycling?

Sadly very few marinas do recycling. Fort Myers does one trash and one recycle pickup per week. No limit to how much trash you can put out. They supply a 64 gallon wheeled trash bin for recycling, no sorting required.

Ted

 

[Peter B]

In a way, this issue is one y'all should be glad to have. I have never been able to spend enough time cruising thus far, to gather enough trash to be an issue. However, I'm taking note of some suggested solutions, just in case...

 

[markpierce]

..

Although I do allow a dispensation on that one for martinis: fill glass with ice, fill glass with gin (or vodka), sip.

"Real men" drink from shot glasses; ice unneeded.

 

[ranger58sb]

Sadly very few marinas do recycling.

Our marina does not recycle; the previous owners told me it would cost them too much. They don't receive city/county trash/recycling service; have to pay for that themselves.

So we usually bring our recyclables home for country recycling.

The mew marina owners may or may not make a change. Could happen, since they're also apparently expanding onto the next door property...

-Chris

 

[O C Diver]

Our marina does not recycle; the previous owners told me it would cost them too much. They don't receive city/county trash/recycling service; have to pay for that themselves.

So we usually bring our recyclables home for country recycling.

The mew marina owners may or may not make a change. Could happen, since they're also apparently expanding onto the next door property...

-Chris

This is a common problem. Municipalities want businesses to pay for all forms or trash removal. Businesses determine that it's less expensive to not recycle and the county sees their landfills full of recyclable material. Had a bar in the same retail strip as my dive store. They threw hundreds of beer bottles per night into the trash because it was cheaper than having a glass recycling dumpster.

My parents retired to Marthas Vineyard (an island). Eventually the landfills were clsed, and all garbage had to be shipped (literally) off the island. When you took a trash bag to the transfer station, they charged you a dollar per bag (that was 20 years ago), sorted recyclable materials were free. All but the wealthy became very motivated to recycle.

Ted

 

[Montenido]

I cruise in the Sea of Cortez in Baja. We usually accumulate a fair amount of trash while out. Besides eliminating excess packaging, and using canned beer as already suggested, I store any full trash bags inside an XL dry bag, like they use on whitewater raft trips. It solves the problem of smells and leaky trash bags. When back in port, just rinse the dry bag and hang it inside out to dry. It has really helped solve this issue for us.

Cheers, Bill

 

[rwidman]

Recycling has become a big political issue. You are considered a good person if you recycle and a bad person if you don't.


Meantime, manufacturers add more and more trash to their products. You used to be able to buy a pound (or whatever amount you needed) of screws or nails and they would put them in a paper sack. Now you have to buy them in plastic containers and often have to buy more than you need. That's either trash or something that has to be collected and melted down to make more plastic containers.

I've often bought tools that were so encased in hard plastic that I needed other tools just to get them out of the packaging.

In my bar days, the beer bottles went back to be washed and reused. What's wrong with that? And sodas were the same way.

My point is, why is it necessary to create all this stuff that needs to be recycled in the first place?


PS: My city stopped picking up recyclables. Said it was too expensive. Said to put them in with regular trash or I could drive them someplace.

 

[BandB]

Our marina does not recycle; the previous owners told me it would cost them too much. They don't receive city/county trash/recycling service; have to pay for that themselves.

So we usually bring our recyclables home for country recycling.

The mew marina owners may or may not make a change. Could happen, since they're also apparently expanding onto the next door property...

-Chris

Recycling is often a challenge and can be expensive for businesses depending on location. Businesses have to contract for all their trash collection, both regular and recycling. In most places, recycling is not required for businesses and most small businesses don't do it. Add to this that every town has different rules and different licensed collection companies. Business wise, financially it made zero sense for us to recycle. The only item we have we can actually sell is cardboard. We're in many different towns as in South Florida you can drive 10 miles and drive through five cities. However, we decided we wanted to be a green company. It increases trash costs by anywhere from 20-50%. Cardboard gives two choices, either free pickup or you deliver to recycler in which case you can sell for $30-50 per ton with minimums of 3 to 5 tons. The other option is setting the cardboard out by your dumpster and letting it get "stolen," which is often the best choice.

So back to marinas. The odds of them getting compliance from boaters and recycling only put in recycling containers are not good. If they did, then they'd still require a separate container or compactor so pay for an additional service on top of their regular trash collection. You're talking about rental for a container that isn't likely to get much put in it and may well have issues if people are throwing trash into the recycling cans. This becomes very costly for very little benefit, I'm afraid. I certainly understand why they don't.

So, to us as boaters, when cruising. We'd like to be green, but sorting on the boat to toss it all into trash at the marina makes no sense so we compact everything. Taking it back home where we may not go for weeks or months isn't an option. If the marinas had recycling, we'd perhaps change, but not much to be gained at this point.

 

[dhays]

In the PNW, there seem to be few marinas that I have found that offer recycling. Since we have had curb side recycling for decades, recycling is second nature to us. I would prefer it if recycling were available at our marina and where we tend to overnight.

 

[Bob Cofer]

Bellingham has recycling at all the docs.

 

[dhays]

Bellingham has recycling at all the docs.

That is great. But doesn't Bellingham also have a dress code on all its docks.... Birkenstocks and organically grown cotton/hemp blends? ;-)

 

[Bob Cofer]

+ man buns and hemp, lots of hemp!

 

[Moonstruck]

Several years back we were stopped by the USCG doing vessel checking on Thanksgiving day. I kinda felt sorry for the guys and one gal because being young they were probably hung with the duty. They went down the list of things to check. When they got down to the trash management plan they were surprised when I showed it posted under the lid to the trash bin. They said they were told to ask about it, but no one would have one. They were very surprised. I asked what they would have done if I had none. They said they wouldn't even write a warning, but just tell me to get one. I don't think it was thought to be a major item.

 

[twistedtree]

We do a combination of things, most of which have been mentioned.

1) Soda stream for drinks.

2) Unpackage pretty much everything right when we buy it, and dispose of packaging before departure. Store things in reusable containers of various sorts.

3) Organic scraps go overboard

4) Trash compactor for everything else

We were on board for over a month last summer without docking anywhere, and only had one large trashbag at the end.

I think #2 is the most important, i.e. never bring all the excessive packaging on board in the first place. Then #4. Also, we typically don't drink while on board, so don't accumulate bottles or cans, but I can see how that would add up.

 

[Mule]

Thanks, what a great offer!

CP beat me to it...I will work cheaper....

 

[Peter B]

Our marina has large dumpsters at the end of each finger, but clearly no attempt is made to recycle, but all our towns and cities have separate general and recycle wheelie bin pick-ups.

I was amazed about the extent to which they take this recycling in the UK though. Even at the caravan parks, they wanted garbage separated for recycling, and in some counties they even expected you to separate out the different colours of glass.

 

[North Baltic sea]

Related Links recycling machine Tyranosaurus. Here side of the world, we are very green, and technology developers. Most of the company was born in Finland, Nokia, unfortunately, microsoft ruined the company after buying it, but relevant. This recycling of waste is an interesting machine, it can crush and sort the waste metals, plastics, and other materials which is to be collected. I know India acquired these old dumps and run through the machine, resulting in big money for entrepreneurs from recycled materials.

Tyrannosaurus made Company BMH Technology Oy

 

[menzies]

First a small note of caution. The glue on the cardboard you have on board is extremely attractive to roaches. So minimize cardboard or find a way to do without completely.

We have both a compactor and a household size waste disposal in one of our sinks. We have separate bags for recycling and non recycling. Even though we do our level best to reduce the footprint - we still find it does start to build up quickly. With crusing the east coast we have no issues with waste disposal.

However we are about to embark on a three month cruise to the Exumas, where we know that trash receptacles are rare. So we are making the best effort to provision with minimal packaging - freezing portions where we can and using cans where we can that can be crushed. Luckily we have a full size domestic fridge-freezer which helps. Right now we are researching what veggies and other food stuffs can be successfully frozen and defrosted. Including mashed and baked potatoes, sweet peppers, etc. etc. We are also bagging up cubes of lemon juice for cooking.

We think with some good prep work, and experimentation beforehand, we can be well prepared. But we will report back through the blog as we go.

 

[mgdavis]

I have made the decision to go with nothing but canned beer instead of bottled beer. I don't drink a lot, but those bottles can add up in a hurry. Cans can be crushed. One of my winter research projects is to find palatable canned beer.

I did this last summer when we did 10 days in the San Juan Islands. I went to the local Total Wine and found several outstanding options from craft- and micro-breweries that were canned. Stone and New Belgium were two of the brands that should be widely distributed.

 

[kthoennes]

Kirin Ichiban

Guiness

 

[bayview]

craft beer makers are moving more toward cans because they keep out light that causes beer to go skunky. In beer freshness is best. In your taste tests only look for the freshest cans. Those stores that have huge variety of canned beer may not be doing your taste test any favors as the turnover may be too slow. Good beer has a very limited shelf life.

 

[dhays]

Love Guinness. Draft is best, but it is good in cans. I picked up some Fremont Bonfire Ale yesterday in cans. It is good. I will keep struggling through the arduous process of determining good can options.

 

[drb1025]

I fill my growler at Bellevue Brewing Company. They also sell 40 pint or 100 pint kegs. Both are zero waste options and fill the need for those that need more than a couple growlers between ports. You have to return the keg. An ice maker would be needed however to keep the keg cold in the bucket. Beats canned and bottled beer for flavor and freshness, and results in no trash. But you probably cannot take it to Canada.

 

[rwidman]

A boat owner at my marina bothered management until they installed recycling bins. She's gone now but the bins are still there. The problem is, they are near the parking lot and the trash cans are at the top of the ramp. Most folks just throw everything into the trash cans because it's easier.