Talking trash

[woodscrew]

The wife and I have been living aboard for five months at a marina here in New Jersey.
We have cruised locally for 4 or 5 days at a clip, and always store our trash onboard for disposal here at the marina dumpster. (Have also gotten used to the convenience of walking to the dumpster almost daily). In a few weeks we are leaving to cruise down the ICW to points south for the winter. What is everyone doing with a week's worth or more of trash? We will be anchoring out for week long stretches, staying at marinas or town docks as needed for fuel, water, shopping etc. I assume we will find some receptacles at public landings by dinghy. Any thoughts, tips or tricks about storing and disposing of potentially stinky garbage? Thanks in advance.

 

[sleaper]

There is a heap of incredibly effective "odor" reducing bags on the market. We have babies on our boat who poop lots and trash doesn't get stinkier than that.

As long as we compress and tie off the bags they store relatively well out on the deck with little or no odor.

Food scraps over the side and a good airtight container for anything really nasty works well too.

I always like having the chore of finding the trash dump local to our anchorage and going on a garbage run though... it's sometimes nice to have some time out for 30 minutes

Good luck to you.

 

[High Wire]

Greetings from NJ!
Municipal marinas are a good stop for that, fuel, water tank fills and pump outs. We never stay out of a marina more than a week at a time. If you do, store it in plastic trash bags on deck somewhere shaded.
Also take stuff out of the boxes before bringing on the boat. Cuts down on a lot of trash.

 

[BandB]

Wifey B: We love love love love love having a trash compactor. They're definitely not cheap but if you cruise a lot as you're saying, they're worth it. Maybe we produce more trash than you, but still once you have one you're spoiled and must have it. We use one at home as well.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. w. You may find that showing up at a facility, by dinghy, with bags of trash to dispose of is not looked kindly upon. IF you're currently doing a daily garbage run you are either too fastidious OR you're generating WAY too much garbage.


Municipal marinas may allow this but I've seen "dumpers" chased away from commercial operations. Mr. HW's comments are valid.

 

[markpierce]

When refueling and pumping out the black-water tank are good times to dispose of trash. One can also try an overnight stay at a marina and have a nice, effort-free restaurant meal.

 

[ben2go]

Buy stuff that doesn't have a container. Good reason to eat more fresh foods. Another idea is to have fresh meats cut at a local market, where they do that, and have them put the meat in a resealable container you provide. They can give you the label to make the sale or stick it on the container.


This is hard for me to think about. We have been recycling so much and not making much trash for so long that I can't remember what all we did do to reduce our trash outflow. Unfortunately, everything seems to be sold wrapped in stuff to toss out.



Most of our trash is paper products, plastic containers, cardboard, and a few plastic bags. Oh, and occasionally a metal can.


As far as storage, a bin on deck with a latching lid.

 

[psneeld]

Have done the ICW in full 15 times or so and partials maybe another 15 between Jersey and Fl.

Never had an issue storing or dumping ashore.

Store in heavy duty trash bags on the after deck or flybridge.... or buy a nice, sightly, tight closing trash can for the flying bridge capable of holding a weeks garbage.

The other trick is keep the bags small, and offload every day a small bag or two (8 gallons are what we have in the galley). Most days even anchoring, we try and get ashore to walk. Pulling into a park or boat ramp or marina...wherever.....no one really notices a small bag that fits even in a park trash container.

Its the big black ones people drag around that get attention.

 

[chc]

Through the Carolinas on the ICW, I wonder what the impact of Florence is going to be on marina facilities along the way? Might be wise to look into that.

 

[psneeld]

Read southbound is OK to and including Morehead City and again from Little River south. A big concern remains the Socastee area until the crest on Thursday.

Belhaven took a hit but River Forest open but no fuel. Hit or miss till Morehead City area.

Everything in between..... still awaiting reports

 

[FF]

"What is everyone doing with a week's worth or more of trash?"

Most AICW marinas are empty of the transit crowd between about 1100 and 1400.

This is the ideal time for a pit stop.

Purchase some fuel, dump the garbage , fill the FW (after tasting their water) many times there is so little dock traffic that a walk to the grocery while the wash is in the machine is a snap.Just ask the gas jockey.

Some spots will have an open WI FI , others will take mail to send.

Easy once you get geared up to do it all really quickly .


Tip the fuel hose jockey .

 

[Shrew]

I would start by reducing processed foods. These come with a lot of packaging. Fresh food does not.

I would also attempt to reduce packaging and waste ahead of time. Do the crackers needs a box AND a bag?

We also have a small barrel for true Garbage and a large barrel for recycling. We'll generate a small plastic grocery bag of garbage for every 2 barrel liners of recycling. Garbage smells, recycling doesn't. It's easy to drop a small grocery bag of garbage at a dinghy dock barrel or dumpster.

I've never seen a dinghy dock without a garbage barrel or a dumpster.

 

[BandB]

I would start by reducing processed foods. These come with a lot of packaging. Fresh food does not.

I would also attempt to reduce packaging and waste ahead of time. Do the crackers needs a box AND a bag?

We also have a small barrel for true Garbage and a large barrel for recycling. We'll generate a small plastic grocery bag of garbage for every 2 barrel liners of recycling. Garbage smells, recycling doesn't. It's easy to drop a small grocery bag of garbage at a dinghy dock barrel or dumpster.

I've never seen a dinghy dock without a garbage barrel or a dumpster.

Wifey B: And what do you do with your recycling?

 

[ben2go]

Wifey B: And what do you do with your recycling?

Ya beat me to it.

 

[FF]

"And what do you do with your recycling?"


Much recycling adds expenses to the waste stream , which is paid for by the town you leave material. Even the more modern single stream is expensive .

Do feel good recycling in your home town , where you get to pay for it.

 

[Shrew]

Wifey B: And what do you do with your recycling?

Many places have recycling bins along with dumpsters. If not, we toss it into the dumpster. If there are only small barrels at a dinghy dock, then we only dump the small garbage bags.

I guess our thought is, by reducing packaging and separating recycling you significantly reduce actual garbage. The recycling bags don't smell or leak. We don't mind if a few pile up. However, we also have a spot on the upper deck that is out of the way, so 2-3 large bags of recycling aren't in the way for us.

 

[ben2go]

Local parks sometimes have trash and recycling areas. I have used these when coming back from a multi-day hike. Been quite a few years since I've done one of those so maybe things have changed.

 

[Lou_tribal]

"And what do you do with your recycling?"


Much recycling adds expenses to the waste stream , which is paid for by the town you leave material. Even the more modern single stream is expensive .

Do feel good recycling in your home town , where you get to pay for it.

Rationale behind recycling is more a matter of reusability and sustainability then cost, at least for me.

L

 

[BandB]

Wifey B: I sure don't see a lot of marinas with effective recycling programs. Seems to be you're separating stinky garbage so you can sneak it into small bins if you must and let the non stinky sit on the boat or something. I'd be curious as what percentage you see with recycling. Also, why not remove it all from your boat at the marina? Is that to avoid paying or being seen or what? If there's a dumpster, why would you keep the recycled on your boat? Hoping the next marina has a large recycling bin?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for recycling but I see a lot of separation done then it dumped into the same dumpster as the trash.

There are some major issues in recycling. Contamination such as unrinsed containers causing entire loads to be rejected, up to 25% of loads. Negative value of paper products in many areas. Then there's a huge new issue. China announced they would no longer take foreign garbage. Much of recycling was going to them. Now it's accumulating and recycling companies don't have answers. We don't have enough manufacturing in the US to use it.

We recycle at home and in our businesses. In fact, many of our areas have what we call the "garbage police" and do actually check trash. However, I hate knowing how much I "recycle" ultimately ends up in landfills. When on the boat, the majority of marinas either don't have recycling or have very minimal capacity for it.

Now, the good news is, except for the China issue, recycling has been improving. Still interested in the ultimate disposal of what you separate on your boat.

 

[ABfish]

B and B- could you share details of your trash compactor and its usage?

I'm learning that trash management is a royal pain when not at the dock. Next trip, I'll follow someone else's suggestion to remove as much packaging as possible before casting off. I'll also prohibit guests from bringing glass beer bottles!

 

[BandB]

Hubby B as Wifey B is now driving:

First, just something for you to think about. In Fort Lauderdale, residential recycling is heavily emphasized. Businesses are under no requirement whatsoever to recycle.

Second, recycling is different in every town. Fort Lauderdale is a single stream program, but even single stream programs differ in what you can put in.

We use standard 15" trash compactors which compact about 5:1 or 6:1. Kitchenaid, Whirlpool, GE and others are all pretty much the same. Viking makes professional models and we can't tell the difference. There are bigger, more powerful units, but definitely not practical for boats.



We started by tossing everything in it, but this created an issue at home. If we brought mixed trash home, then what would we do with it? So, now the issue was what can't be recycled? We do have a disposal so food isn't an issue other than bones. The only other things we saw we couldn't recycle were paper towels, the plastic freezer wrappings and toothpaste containers. So, we ended up turning the compactor into a recycling only compactor, even though it may not meet the recycling rules of the specific place we are. If it doesn't, then it goes to the dumpster.

It gets worse. Then we put in a second compactor for those things that can't be recycled. They take very little more space than trash cans.

We'd not even try to separate if it wasn't for what we bring home with us and the "garbage police" as my wife called them. Between marinas not having recycling or it being different than single stream, we find very little of what we deem recyclable when cruising actually goes to recycling.

For most cruisers, we'd recommend a single compactor and no effort to recycle as much as we hate saying that.

As to where we're good and not good in reducing trash. We have food in vacuum sealed bags and we do have canned goods. We also have a lot of plastic water bottles which we try to recycle where possible. We use a good many paper towels. We do have plastic bags when we shop while cruising.

What we don't have is any paper plates or plasticware or any paper or plastic cups.

I'd like to say we had a simple solution. However, we do love the reduction from a compactor.

 

[ABfish]

Thanks, B and B. I have a rarely used icemaker that may be replaced by a trash compactor in the near future.

 

[Mako]

I used to think that trash compactors were a waste - just a yuppy trend. For a house I still don’t see the high value since most municipalities have reliable refuse pickup and recycling bins.

However I owned one on my boat that I lived on and it was fantastic. The many comments above are helpful too. If you’re planning on being away from land for long periods then toss the ice maker and install a simple unit from Home Depot.

But I recommend the heavy paper bags that go with them.

 

[Gray Dog]

Talking Trash

No glass beer bottles! You might have just crossed the line. Is nothing sacred anymore...

 

[Gordon J]

I’ll second that

Wifey B: We love love love love love having a trash compactor. They're definitely not cheap but if you cruise a lot as you're saying, they're worth it. Maybe we produce more trash than you, but still once you have one you're spoiled and must have it. We use one at home as well.

What she said.

 

[FlyWright]

No glass beer bottles! You might have just crossed the line. Is nothing sacred anymore...

 

[mom-mac]

Ditto the food refuse over the side and getting rid of all boxes before cruising. We mounted a can crusher for soda/beer cans and hand collapse individual water bottles.

 

[dennismenace111]

Greetings from NJ!
Municipal marinas are a good stop for that, fuel, water tank fills and pump outs. We never stay out of a marina more than a week at a time. If you do, store it in plastic trash bags on deck somewhere shaded.
Also take stuff out of the boxes before bringing on the boat. Cuts down on a lot of trash.

Helps prevent roach infestations as well! The little critters live in the cardboard boxes... The big ones here in South Florida eat the boxes.

 

[psneeld]

Ditto the food refuse over the side and getting rid of all boxes before cruising. We mounted a can crusher for soda/beer cans and hand collapse individual water bottles.

Be careful, not exactly legal in the US unless following MARPOL regs.

 

[dhays]

B and B- could you share details of your trash compactor and its usage?

I'm learning that trash management is a royal pain when not at the dock. Next trip, I'll follow someone else's suggestion to remove as much packaging as possible before casting off. I'll also prohibit guests from bringing glass beer bottles!

I would love a trash compactor, but don't have the practical space for one. We (really my wife) get rid of as much packaging as possible before stuff gets put on the boat. This is particularly true when leaving for a 1 or 2 week trip. It is often very difficult or very expensive to find a place to dispose of garbage so we try to reduce what we produce as much as possible.


We also recycle as much as we can. We separate out the recycling and when we find recycle containers, we get rid of it. If we can't find a recycling location, we dump it when we are at a marina that doesn't have problems with garbage.



I drink beer. I have also switched from glass to cans. There is good beer out there in cans these days. The cans are a lot lighter and take less volume than bottles. Plus, cans can't break.