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This synopsis is based on an article in Pacific Yachting magazine for Eco Boating. Several good points were made, especially for those of us who have less room to store garbage on board.

• -The styrofoam packing and backing on meat products needs to be removed before packing meat away on board. Transfer meat contents into a container that can be washed and stored away and reused.
  -Use resuseable baggies or freezer bags for bulk foods.
  -Remove all excess exterior packageing like cardboard boxing and hard plastic and use baggies or freezer bags instead. Do this before putting it aboard.
  -Transfer fresh produce into hanging nets where possible so that air can get in and heat and moisture can get out. There will be less rotting food waste.
  -Use dried foods instead of tinned foods where possible.
  -Consider using powdered drink mixes, including powedered milk.

If there are other suggestions to share, please add to the post.

Deep freeze the meat or anything not in glass before loading the fridge or cooler. It might gain you an extra day before all your ice melts.
If you can source a cheap slab of dry ice it is well worth the additional expense compared to marina ice.

Just my 2 cents.
R.

Garbage is always an issue on our boat.

So where do you keep your trash bag? We hang a plastic bag under the switch panel. It's not really working well there and dangles over the spot where my head goes at night.
When full, we tie it off the transom.

Some things we've learned.

The new cheap water bottles from Costco collapse when crushed into a smaller space.
Reusable water bottles work best. We buy 1/2 gal bottled water and keep in the fridge for refills.
Glass bottles take up too much space.
If it's food, we toss leftovers etc. over the side. Don't know or care how legal it is. It's food and fish have to eat too. Warm food stuff in the trash stink pretty fast.
We buy foil sheets (from Costco of course) and line small plastic baskets for plates. Similar to how some restaurants serve their food. Works well for things that don't need cutting (like steak). When done, roll up the foil into a ball and toss in the trash.
Washing plates creates less trash. It does, however, use more fresh water.


--Russ

I hang a small trash bag on companion way ladder. It is accessible from the cockpit as well. The small trash bags get lumped together in a larger garbage bag stored under the dinette seat, but I cannot store much garbage. Nor do I want to do so.
Glass bottles are a no-no. But I do bend the rules a bit for a 40oz glass bottle for medicinal purposes.

We have both a built in fridge 45litre and a waeco esky type fridge freezer (both 12v)...both of which have dedicated plastic containers which completely fill them but with air space between.All fridge type foods are packed in these reusable containers...frozen foods are prefrozen in containers or into shapes to fit our freezer....avoid commercial prepacked foods...packaging creates garbage and the shapes don't necessarily conform with the fridges.We carry a range of ingredients to make meals , again trying to minimise packaging but keeping a good range (non perishable) allowing for different combos.....did find some biscuits recently which were 18 months out of date!!!So now we have prepacked supply boxes with the contents list on the lid allowing for rotation with home or camper.
The use of square 1 litre plastic bottles,large lidded one's...great for nearly filling with pancake mixture and shaking...5 will fit in the fridge door for various liquids.All that said our garbage still mounts and given we tend to go places where other people don't...getting rid of it poses a problem also makes you think about the amount garbage we create in general....throw away society
This ramble was started with the idea of outlining waste minimisation as we realise the problem it creates if you spend more than a few days on the water

The missus insists on hanging the garbage plasic bag on the traveller and in through the companionway, which conveniently (in her opinion) hangs right over where my head goes at night.

Finally, after having crap leak on my head for 3.5 years, (actually it gets swung out into the cockpit at night), I have a simple solution. I happened upon a large strong rectangle shaped plastic bucket with lid, actually a mayonnaise container from a junk food place, which was about to be thrown in the bin.
The lid securely snaps on and it can be thrown under the table or in the cockpit etc with no leaks, spills or smells to worry about. You dont even need a bag liner if your happy to give it a rinse when you find somewhere to empty it. I'm going to get a smaller version for day trips when I see something appropriate.

In protected waters close to shore, I’ll sneak stuff over the side that I know will be eaten by sea creatures (I'm just talking stuff like bread, meat etc - the local mud crabs seem to love my sausages!), but not stuff like fruit, vegies etc (which I was told takes ages to break down) and may well just wash up on beaches, and certainly nothing solid like plastic, metal etc.

We keep our garbage on week cruises in a large kitty litter container with sealable lid

Waste scraps overboard, garbage and bottles go ashore for recycling - the lid makes it easy to GEt stiff ashore on the tender sans mess.

If we're unable to dump ashore then I plan/pack with volume reduction in mind. If boonies crusing, an onion sack or mesh bag hung over the rail is good for crushed cans/plastic bottles or other light weight trash. Box wine minus the box is amazingly durable and reduces to virtually nothing; the liner bags also make great future water containers or ice blocks.

It takes a few days to freeze, but 5 gallon collapsible containers make super block ice. We used to take one on 4-5 day canoe trips and have ice cold drinking water for the whole trip, with the bonus of ever reducing weight and volume. Pretty much any 5 gallon condiment container has a good seal for stinky ztuff that can't go overboard. I like my pickle bucket, but I'll be on the lookout for a rectangular mayo bucket too

Rubbish, garbage and trash are descriptive words that have changed in meaning over the years. Garbage was specifically food waste. Rubbish or trash was non-food waste. Public garbage collection was a common household service before the introduction of garbage disposals in kitchen sinks. Communities had a garbage man and a trash collection service. You could smell the garbage man coming a few blocks away. The rubbish truck hardly smelled at all. I still get confused when people (younger generation) speak of trash as garbage. I guess garbage today doesn't smell because it's trash.

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Sum

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Our MacGregor 26-S

Our Endeavour 37

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We generate a lot of trash because we don't carry dinner service aboard. We use all paper disposable cups and plates along with PLA biodegradeable plastic ware that I don't feel badly about over boarding if necessary. When camping ashore, we burn the paper trash. While we don't have a grill, one could easily incinerate paper trash in a magma as well.

We separate trash into safe and hazardous for dumping overboard, and use a plastic bag for plastic and a garbage pail for dump able that gets reused.

Just don't take plastic with you and you'll solve 90% of your trash dumping problem. Unpackage new items begfore bringing them aboard. Steel cans and paper trash are fine to dumpoverboard--they'll be gone in months. Glass likewise is harmless. When you have to use plastic, use PLA which biodegrades in about six months.

Plan whether you'll be dumping ashore (use plastic bags) or at sea (use a garbage pail with a lid and separate. Makes it simple and its easy to teach.

We dove love our little Costco bottled water though. Still don't use the onboard water system because of the plastic taste.

We found a garbage can that fits under the sink . Its tight but works . I removed the galley front and built shelves under the galley , leaving a place for the garbage can under the sink . We stay on the hook sometimes up to a week as that's the limit of our water and sewage tank . The garbage can , most of the time , contains a weeks worth of garbage
All organic materials , such as food scraps , left overs , and coffee grounds go overboard . Legal or not this does not hurt the environment , in fact its good for it .
We too , pack our meat into ziplocks , coffee , flour , etc into reusable containers .

That's the key , is to bring onboard as little potential garbage as possible .

We dove love our little Costco bottled water though. Still don't use the onboard water system because of the plastic

That's a tough nut to crack with my typical crew of 6

You need individual bottles for sanitary reasons, so you end up with a lot of polycarbonate bottles

My house water is only 10 gallons but its perfect for washing, we don't drink from that tank, so I can be more aggressive with bleach to keep it clean.

Curious: How much bleach do you add or what is the ratio of your water to bleach? We plan on using "house" water for washing only, so thought I would leave out bleach. Bottled water for drinking. . .

WASP18 wrote:Curious: How much bleach do you add or what is the ratio of your water to bleach? We plan on using "house" water for washing only, so thought I would leave out bleach. Bottled water for drinking. . .

For long term storage of drinking water, use 9 drops of bleach per gallon of water. That's a bit much, but it remains potable and is a potent biocide.