Subject: More head trip (plumbing issues)
From: "Paolo Zini"

I agree: my engine is wind.
But sometimes the actions have a "flag" value: over my roof I have
photovoltaic panels, I do know that the energy balance (amount of energy
used to produce the cell/amount of energy generated in the life) of
photovoltaic cells is largely debatable and my photovoltaic panels don't
change my country energy balance... But I have put my money there because I
want a greater attention to this type of problems.

Paolo

While I'm sure you are sincere, you're thinking is classic
environmentalist/sail boater hypocrisy.

In that you think you are being environmentally superior but you seem forget
that almost everything on you boat has been made with or from polluting
products or processes.

Will your boat have teak on it? Was it farm raised? If so how much natural
vegetation was destroyed/displaced to grow it?
Will you be varnishing or oiling it?

What are you batteries made from? Environmentally friendly lead and acid?

What fuel will power your stove?

Any plastics on your boat? Aluminum? Stainless steel?
How much oil/energy was used to process/make them?

The list goes on and on.

And by the way, what will you be doing with that black and gray water on your
boat?

Oh wait I see, you'll:

"discarge your waste few miles away from coast... where currents and
large wather masses can dilute and dissolve it."

Classic, just classic.

Do the coastal and inshore waters in your world never mix?
No tides?
Or is it just an "out of sight, out of mind" thing?

When your boat comes to the end of it's life how do you intend to recycle it?
Or will the: "currents and large wather masses" take care of that too?

While I believe in doing all we can to keep the earth clean and I enjoy
sailing, I can't see myself sitting in my plastic hulled, teak trimmed sail
boat with toxic bottom paint on it reading by my lead/acid battery or genset
powered light, while perhaps my Freon based aircon/ fridge units are keeping
things cool, feeling all superior to next guy down the mooring field in his
stink pot.



God I love a
good rant, Capt. Bill

On 18 Nov 2004 17:58:07 GMT, (LaBomba182) wrotf:

While I'm sure you are sincere, you're thinking is classic
environmentalist/sail boater hypocrisy.

In that you think you are being environmentally superior but you seem forget
that almost everything on you boat has been made with or from polluting
products or processes.

Will your boat have teak on it? Was it farm raised? If so how much natural
vegetation was destroyed/displaced to grow it?
Will you be varnishing or oiling it?

What are you batteries made from? Environmentally friendly lead and acid?

What fuel will power your stove?

Any plastics on your boat? Aluminum? Stainless steel?
How much oil/energy was used to process/make them?

The list goes on and on.

And by the way, what will you be doing with that black and gray water on your
boat?

Oh wait I see, you'll:

"discarge your waste few miles away from coast... where currents and
large wather masses can dilute and dissolve it."

Classic, just classic.

Do the coastal and inshore waters in your world never mix?
No tides?
Or is it just an "out of sight, out of mind" thing?

When your boat comes to the end of it's life how do you intend to recycle it?
Or will the: "currents and large wather masses" take care of that too?

While I believe in doing all we can to keep the earth clean and I enjoy
sailing, I can't see myself sitting in my plastic hulled, teak trimmed sail
boat with toxic bottom paint on it reading by my lead/acid battery or genset
powered light, while perhaps my Freon based aircon/ fridge units are keeping
things cool, feeling all superior to next guy down the mooring field in his
stink pot.



God I love a
good rant, Capt. Bill

So I guess everything from the hand of humanity is evil. If so,
please do the world a favor and promptly dispose of yourself in an
enviromentally friendly fashion.

The reality is that feces and urine are perfectly natural substances
and the most natural thing to do with them is to return them to the
environment where their constituents can be recycled by the sea or
earth. Dumping oily bilge water is indeed another thing entirely.
Yes, there are many things on a boat made by human ingenuity and
sometimes there are consequences to using them but in the end
everything is a compromise and finding the best ones out there is the
best we can do.

If one adapts a chicken little attitude that everything is bad and the
sky is falling one ends up doing nothing at all which does not
contribute to the world either. Best bet is to live as best you can.
Yes, sailing gently on the waters is best, doing as little to pollute
as possible, but worrying about something as natural as feces and
urine is silly in the long run. Considering the millions of tons that
sea creatures add to the waters, the little bit that comes from human
vessel discharge is indeed miniscule and there is no indication that
human feces are in any way more toxic or less natural than those of
our finned kin.

I sail gently because it is practical and right, but discharging
gray/black water, even if done close to shore, is not going to cause
an ecological catastrophe. Indeed, discharge from either lectrasan
or chlorinator heads is much cleaner than that of sea animals.

Weebles Wobble
(but they don't fall down)

Subject: More head trip (plumbing issues)
From:

On 18 Nov 2004 17:58:07 GMT, (LaBomba182) wrotf:

While I'm sure you are sincere, you're thinking is classic
environmentalist/sail boater hypocrisy.

In that you think you are being environmentally superior but you seem forget
that almost everything on you boat has been made with or from polluting
products or processes.

Will your boat have teak on it? Was it farm raised? If so how much natural
vegetation was destroyed/displaced to grow it?
Will you be varnishing or oiling it?

What are you batteries made from? Environmentally friendly lead and acid?

What fuel will power your stove?

Any plastics on your boat? Aluminum? Stainless steel?
How much oil/energy was used to process/make them?

The list goes on and on.

And by the way, what will you be doing with that black and gray water on
your
boat?

Oh wait I see, you'll:

"discarge your waste few miles away from coast... where currents and
large wather masses can dilute and dissolve it."

Classic, just classic.

Do the coastal and inshore waters in your world never mix?
No tides?
Or is it just an "out of sight, out of mind" thing?

When your boat comes to the end of it's life how do you intend to recycle
it?
Or will the: "currents and large wather masses" take care of that too?

While I believe in doing all we can to keep the earth clean and I enjoy
sailing, I can't see myself sitting in my plastic hulled, teak trimmed sail
boat with toxic bottom paint on it reading by my lead/acid battery or genset
powered light, while perhaps my Freon based aircon/ fridge units are keeping
things cool, feeling all superior to next guy down the mooring field in his
stink pot.



God I
love a
good rant, Capt. Bill

So I guess everything from the hand of humanity is evil. If so,
please do the world a favor and promptly dispose of yourself in an
enviromentally friendly fashion.

The reality is that feces and urine are perfectly natural substances
and the most natural thing to do with them is to return them to the
environment where their constituents can be recycled by the sea or
earth. Dumping oily bilge water is indeed another thing entirely.
Yes, there are many things on a boat made by human ingenuity and
sometimes there are consequences to using them but in the end
everything is a compromise and finding the best ones out there is the
best we can do.

If one adapts a chicken little attitude that everything is bad and the
sky is falling one ends up doing nothing at all which does not
contribute to the world either. Best bet is to live as best you can.
Yes, sailing gently on the waters is best, doing as little to pollute
as possible, but worrying about something as natural as feces and
urine is silly in the long run. Considering the millions of tons that
sea creatures add to the waters, the little bit that comes from human
vessel discharge is indeed miniscule and there is no indication that
human feces are in any way more toxic or less natural than those of
our finned kin.

I sail gently because it is practical and right, but discharging
gray/black water, even if done close to shore, is not going to cause
an ecological catastrophe. Indeed, discharge from either lectrasan
or chlorinator heads is much cleaner than that of sea animals.


We seem to be in total agreement.

Capt. Bill

On 18 Nov 2004 17:58:07 GMT, (LaBomba182) wrote:

While I believe in doing all we can to keep the earth clean and I enjoy
sailing, I can't see myself sitting in my plastic hulled, teak trimmed sail
boat with toxic bottom paint on it reading by my lead/acid battery or genset
powered light, while perhaps my Freon based aircon/ fridge units are keeping
things cool, feeling all superior to next guy down the mooring field in his
stink pot.

Hey, *thinking* about these issues--as opposed to knee-jerk
tree-hugging, or worse, turning up the A/C on your stinkpotter--is a
good start.

Even though I am hard pressed to use 12 gallons of gas per year on my
boat, I am well aware of the 150 pounds of lead in the batteries, the
bottles of oil I consume, and the propane I burn. As I don't own a car
and have spent a fair bit to properly insulate the house, I know I am
below average in energy usage for the average North American.

But I could do better through proper planning.

On my next boat, such considerations will play a large part in my
systems design. I am watching closely the electric motor development
(batteries can be recycled to a great extent) and figuring how I can
keep the concepts of low pollution and self-sufficiency near the top
of my list.

It's not about feeling superior as much as it's about noticing even in
my 40s how much the weather has changed. It's also about saving money
in the long run, and mostly it's about wanting to do as little harm as
possible to a planet my kid will eventually inherit.

R.

So why doesn't Southern California allow Electra-San treated discharge??

Everett
Long Beach, CA

"Peggie Hall" wrote in message
...
Paolo Zini wrote:
...CUT...

removing it altogether...why store waste aboard if you can discharge it
legally AND with far less negative environmental impact than dumping a
tank?

just curious... Do you like to swim in your s**t?

Every sewage treatment plant in the world discharges into somebody's
waters...so it's just a matter of how well treated you want it to be.

And fwiw, the negative impact from just ONE dumped holding tank is greater
on the surrounding waters than that from 1000 boats, all using
Lectra/Sans, in the same waters for 24 hours.


--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://69.20.93.241/store/customer/p...40&cat=&page=1

I've been reading both sides of this argument and I'd like to add my two
cents....(IE, not worth much).

The arguement seems to waver around the FACT (bold type because it is a
fact) that fish and other animals deficate in the water.

The arguement is that if most people consider water that is full of natural
feces to be "clean", then a little of their own will not harm anything.

The water ways and oceans have a considerable ability to clean themselves
and not only does the natural feces exist, it can benifit the enviroment by
adding to the food chain.

The problem starts when the natural balances get out of balance.

As an example, put the recomended amount of fertilizer on your garden and
your flowers and vegetables should grow and produce better, but put 10 or
100 times of the recomended amount of fertilizer on your garden and your
yield is not 10 or 100 times better, instead the ground is "burned",
nothing will grow. The plants that needed the fertilizer and used the
fertilizer can no longer live on the over fertilized soil and it will be
many years before it will be possible to use that soil again.

Water flowing down from a mountain top is very clean, even though fish are
crapping in it (lots of water, few fish), later it goes through a pasture
with some cattle in it and it is less clean (still lots of water, but now
more crap), it then goes by the Coors plant (not trying to pick on them) and
now it is even less clean (water, crap, and some beer), the water is still
considered almost pure because there are very small percentages of crap and
beer. It then goes to a town and after being treated with clorine, flourine
and other chemicals it is used as fresh water, it then gets more crap added,
more chemicals, some treatment and is discharged back into the stream. Many
towns and cities later it reaches the Ocean, I doubt if there are very many
people in this group who would be willing to walk down to the river bank
close to where it reaches the Ocean and have several large glasses of river
water.

So now the water has reached the Ocean, it is a much higher level of crap,
chemicals and other polution in it than the water did 200 years ago did, and
what do we find on the edge of the Ocean? Some of our biggest cities,
producing even more polution, crap and chemicals.

So if you look at the Ocean as a garden you can see that the natural cycle
would let it clean itself and even a little additional polution can be
tolerated, the problem is when the amounts get too high.

Early in WWII German submarines ravaged the East coast, this was even more
critical when you realize that at the time almost all of the oil for the
east coast was transported by ship. for years after WWII you could go to
most any east coast beach and dig down a few feet and find oil. Over time
all this oil has been cleaned up...by the Ocean, but it takes time, a lot of
time.

Have you ever driven down a highway and been disgusted by all the trash that
you see along the way? All that trash was not caused by one person (usually)
but instead was the product of a bunch of people thinking "there is already
some trash out there, one more piece won't matter".

"No one raindrop blames itself for the flood"

I wrote this because I want people to realize that the big question is "are
you adding to the problem, or are you adding to the solution" or
"a turd in the right place is fertilizer, a turd in the wrong place is
polution".

Eric

Subject: More head trip (plumbing issues)
From: rhys

It's not about feeling superior as much as it's about noticing even in
my 40s how much the weather has changed. It's also about saving money
in the long run, and mostly it's about wanting to do as little harm as
possible to a planet my kid will eventually inherit.

I see your points and agree.

It's just that I've seen and heard that "I'm an environmentally correct
superior sailor and all you stink potters are polluters" once to often.

And like I said it was just a rant. :-)


Capt. Bill

wrote:
The reality is that feces and urine are perfectly natural substances
and the most natural thing to do with them is to return them to the
environment where their constituents can be recycled by the sea or
earth.

I guess that's why you take a big dump in your kitchen sink every night
before dinner?

Your reality seems to be a bit ignorant of basic ecology & biology.

DSK

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 06:44:18 -0500, DSK wrote:

wrote:
The reality is that feces and urine are perfectly natural substances
and the most natural thing to do with them is to return them to the
environment where their constituents can be recycled by the sea or
earth.

I guess that's why you take a big dump in your kitchen sink every night
before dinner?

Your reality seems to be a bit ignorant of basic ecology & biology.

DSK

No, I don't **** in my sink, but then again, if you eat organically
grown foods, they are fertilized with feces.


Weebles Wobble
(but they don't fall down)

Oops, sorry. It's illegal to discharge even olive oil...
http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/vegoil.htm

--


Keith
__
Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone.

"Paolo Zini" wrote in message
...


I am interested only in small sailboat, i am building one 26' catamaran.
The only oil that you can extract from my bilge will be olive oil... :-)