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Message in a bottle washed up

Brisbane41
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SeaDog-46

SeaDog-46

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It is NOT against International law to dump rubbish items into the sea in most areas when more than a specified distance from the coast.

 

Exceptions are plastic which should be retained onboard for disposal ashore if not incinerated onboard.

 

The only areas that totally ban rubbish are - Black Sea, Baltic Sea & I think the North Sea has been added.

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Brisbane41

Brisbane41

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I just think it is very amusing that the bottle somehow made it ashore with over 400km distance to travel in less than 80 days. There would have been some mighty strong currents moving those bottles not to mention cyclone Debbie. Most people I know in the Navy with the last name Tyler cop the nickname Roof. He is actually at sea at the very moment so I will have to wait till the end of May to find out if he has any other text messages on his phone from people finding bottles.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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It is NOT against International law to dump rubbish items into the sea in most areas when more than a specified distance from the coast.

 

Exceptions are plastic which should be retained onboard for disposal ashore if not incinerated onboard.

 

The only areas that totally ban rubbish are - Black Sea, Baltic Sea & I think the North Sea has been added.

 

The actual list of "special areas" where garbage is not allowed to be dumped is a bit larger:

 

Black Sea

Baltic Sea

North Sea

Mediterranean Sea

Persian/Arabian Gulf

Red Sea

Antarctic Sea

"Wider Caribbean Area" (the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico)

 

And, you are not totally correct about allowed discharges outside the special areas (though you were correct a few years ago). The only garbage allowed to be discharged at sea is:

 

Food waste, cargo residues (those not harmful to the environment, and at controlled discharge rates), cleaning agents from washing cargo holds and decks, and carcasses of animals that died on the voyage. These rules changed in 2013 so that general garbage like glass, paper, cardboard, and steel that were previously allowed to be discharged outside special areas are no longer allowed.

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mrs and mrs

mrs and mrs

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I know, just don't get me started on tipping the indigenous guides.:rolleyes:

 

 

LOL, ya had ta do it, yeah well, makes interesting reading, maybe some should do a little research.;p

 

The Scenario.

A kid chucks a message in a bottle, off the sanctuary railing, on a cruise to Japan.

Goodness me.

All in the name of a science experiment.

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MicCanberra Holiday Sharing Rare

MicCanberra

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LOL, ya had ta do it, yeah well, makes interesting reading, maybe some should do a little research.;p

 

The Scenario.

A kid chucks a message in a bottle, off the sanctuary railing, on a cruise to Japan.

Goodness me.

All in the name of a science experiment.

Yes but uses a bogus name, meanwhile off the coast of Africa a person's only hope of rescue is someone finding the message that was sent adrift from his rocky atoll. The message is found by someone cleaning up litter on the beach on a clean up Australia day campaign but is just dismissed as a science experiment.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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Ch Eng - Thanks for update on the current rules - I'm too long retired.

 

I wonder what percentage of ships fully comply with the regs.

 

Couple more years and I'll head on into retirement as well.

 

Probably not 100% compliance, but its better than before, with garbage record logs being required to document amounts and types of garbage offloaded ashore, incinerated, etc, and Port State Inspectors looking at these, and knowing roughly what ships produce over time, they can get an idea of who may be dumping some stuff.

 

My tanker spends a lot of time anchored in the Gulf of Mexico, which is in the Greater Caribbean "special area", so since we are not underway, we cannot discharge even ground up food waste, so we package it in buckets and freeze it and dispose of it ashore.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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Potentially explains why I've gotten different stories onboard about whether food is disposed overboard or not.

 

Food waste on a cruise ship is almost universally disposed of at sea. Even in "special areas", ground up food waste can be discharged if more than 12 miles from shore, and the ship is underway.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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On one Princess ship, the Environmental Officer explained that the food waste (not bones) was macerated and fed down a shute into the ocean. Other waste (cans and bottles etc.) is put aside for recycling.

 

The food waste is ground at various industrial sized garbage disposals around the various galleys and prep rooms on the ship, all of which are connected together by a water flow system. This takes the ground food down to a holding tank, which can hold about 6-10 cubic meters of food waste until the ship is outside of 3 miles at night.

 

Most ships will have a "bone crusher" as part of the "pulper" system (as the industrial garbage disposals are called). This unit uses hydraulic pressure to crush bones small enough to pass through a sieve. These units can crush most bones, except things like the humerus end of a cow's thigh bone.

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mrs and mrs

mrs and mrs

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Yes but uses a bogus name, meanwhile off the coast of Africa a person's only hope of rescue is someone finding the message that was sent adrift from his rocky atoll. The message is found by someone cleaning up litter on the beach on a clean up Australia day campaign but is just dismissed as a science experiment.

 

aha but you forgot to mention that the person doing the clean up aussie day was indigi, and couldn't be tipped in case they spent the money on---:eek:. MMhh think I got that right from memory.

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Brisbane41

Brisbane41

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Its waste and garbage from the shores of South America that get washed out to sea and caught in the currents. Things like beach chairs and even rubbish from fishing boats. It is also when developing countries do not have adequate garbage disposal and the people living in the slums dump their garbage at beaches, in rivers and it gets away into the ocean. It is a problem in some Asian countries as well and also in India to name a few. With population explosions and massive slums on the coast and development it is to be expected that this sort of garbage gets tossed into the ocean with no care in the world.

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OzKiwiJJ Great Review Rare

OzKiwiJJ

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It's definitely a problem in India. I was sighteeing in Chennai a few years ago and went past a really lovely beach - well, it would have been really lovely if it hadn't been covered in trash!

 

Mind you, most Australians aren't much better. I was appalled at the amount of rubbish people left behind them at an event at the Sydney Domain. There were large rubbish bins at every entrance but most people just left their rubbish where they had been sitting, for someone else to clean up, which the event organisers do. I imagine these same people throw rubbish out the windows of cars, and leave it lying around on beaches and at parks, and there may not be people around to clean up those places. Every year we have Clean Up Australia Day to remove this rubbish from shorelines, rivers, creeks, and bushland. Every day should be Clean Up Australia Day IMHO. :mad:

 

*rant over*

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MicCanberra Holiday Sharing Rare

MicCanberra

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It's definitely a problem in India. I was sighteeing in Chennai a few years ago and went past a really lovely beach - well, it would have been really lovely if it hadn't been covered in trash!

 

Mind you, most Australians aren't much better. I was appalled at the amount of rubbish people left behind them at an event at the Sydney Domain. There were large rubbish bins at every entrance but most people just left their rubbish where they had been sitting, for someone else to clean up, which the event organisers do. I imagine these same people throw rubbish out the windows of cars, and leave it lying around on beaches and at parks, and there may not be people around to clean up those places. Every year we have Clean Up Australia Day to remove this rubbish from shorelines, rivers, creeks, and bushland. Every day should be Clean Up Australia Day IMHO. :mad:

 

*rant over*

Agreed, it happens everywhere around the world.

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Brisbane41

Brisbane41

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Well, maybe not Singapore, Japan...

 

I highly doubt Singapore would have much garbage but they do have a lot of ships anchored off their coast. Japan is clean but the tsunami took a heap of debris out to sea six years ago and made a real mess of things.

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Tara Jane

Tara Jane

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:)we were on a cruise around Japan and our port stop in Aomori coincided with their festival.

not a bin in site and not a single piece of litter/bottles. The Japanese take their rubbish home with them. I instantly thought of moomba in Melbourne and the amount of rubbish we have to walk through. Love Japan 10 trips and can't wait to get back

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OzKiwiJJ Great Review Rare

OzKiwiJJ

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I highly doubt Singapore would have much garbage but they do have a lot of ships anchored off their coast. Japan is clean but the tsunami took a heap of debris out to sea six years ago and made a real mess of things.

 

I've never seen any litter in Singapore and I've been there a number of times.

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Brisbane41

Brisbane41

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and this is an uninhabited Island.....

38 million pieces of plastic waste found on uninhabited South Pacific island

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/15/38-million-pieces-of-plastic-waste-found-on-uninhabited-south-pacific-island

 

That is the same article as above from another news agency. It all comes from South America they believe.

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