How to not waste your (time) sea?
| 7 September 2012 | Posted by Alex from Lagoon under Technical world |
- Loïc Lagrange, area sales manager and captain.
An important topic of a good sailing organization is the waste management. This is particularly true for a long passage, when you have to keep for several days or weeks some refuse which takes space and smells bad. Loïc, our area sales manager for the Middle-East and Caribbean area (and former captain on large sailing yachts) gives you a few tricks on managing waste at sea.
There are two types of waste: recyclable and biodegradable.
- This image is in french but easy to understand : the years of degradation (left vertical bar) that need the different wastes.
1. Recyclable waste:
Plastic wrapping, cartons, tins: everything you don’t wish to (and cannot) throw overboard.
To make your crossing more pleasant, it’s a good idea to rinse all this packaging before storing it in a bin liner. Otherwise you may find yourself having to put up with an unpleasant odour throughout your crossing. For the plastic bottles: remember to crush them to save space.
The pollution of the seas by plastic is an issue by itself. Have you heard about the 6th continent? This area where you do not want to sail is located in the north Pacific. There, between the coasts of the US and the Japan, the currents move in gyre. As a result, all the waste surrounding these coasts is funnelled to one zone. Plastic objects (which take more than 400 years to be degraded), gather in this area to form a unique plastic continent 6 times larger than France!
- You can call it : plastic vortex, 6th continent or “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”.
2. Biodegradable waste:
Reserve a bucket to use as a sea waste bin, where you can throw all peelings, egg shells, meat scraps, used kitchen paper, paper serviettes, coffee filters, and anything that will degrade in the sea in the short term. After taking care to check the content of the waste bin, you can empty it into the sea – well offshore (around 30 nautical milles), of course, to avoid polluting the coastal regions.
- Some biodegradable wastes
Storage:
Then there is the problem of storing the bags: in a forward locker, the chain locker, in the after peak locker, etc. Remember that you may meet with bad weather and the waste bags may tear. So choose an easily accessible site, which can be washed if necessary. It may be a good idea to double-wrap, enclosing each bag in another one.
And with those encouraging words, have a good crossing!
PS1: Did you recognize what is on the picture of the cover of this article? It is a trash in an anchoring area. So you can throw your waste in this white cylinder with no need to stop at a marina!
PS2: If you want to know a little bit more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, follow this link from its discoverer, Charles Moore .
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