did you know? Dumping at Sea:

did you know that the US NAVY dumps trash at sea every night when they are out at sea cruising?

one of the saddest things i remember seeing when i served in the USN was watching the countless bags of trash being thrown over-board after chow-time each night.

i'd often have "watch" on the aft part of the ship, and would be looking aft when all of a sudden bag after bag would go trailing by in our wake, bobbing (and sinking) into what the navy must think is an endless trash pit.

night after night, 20 - 30 large plastic bags of trash go floating away...

i was on a relatively small ship (guided missile cruiser) - 477 staff on board, each person generating a certain amount of trash each day.

i hope the carriers had the capacity to haul their trash back to port. i know all of the ships in our battle group dumped trash nightly as we did...

sad isn't it?

edit: (i hope the USN has corrected their trash handling since the late 80's, but i doubt anything has changed)

hi there ,
good post...its not just the navy , i have seen cruise ships doing it at sea .....and i have even seen river cruise ships dumping loads of rubbish every day into a river system with 5 hydro damns on it .


snoopyuk

Is there actually room in the ship to put the trash? What other options would they have.

Personally, I would like to see a furnace where it is all burned.

actually this post was put up by accident last night. i have 2 links that i need to add to the post.
it talks about how the USN has made efforts to responsibly handle their trash - in hopes for a year 2000 deadline on the issue. (old article but nice to use as litmus)

from what i've seen they are talking about putting incinerators on ships as well as trash compactors.

the thing with storage space on ships underway is it's tight for space. my thinking was,
as you deplete supplies, you fill those voids with trash, but that's not how it all works - sharing goods space with trash.

i'll amend this post tonight with the helpful articles of progress.
cheers.

I will add this. Ships have always had incinerators aboard to burn classified material such as messages from the Radio Shack that have no other use at the time. I have seen these giant "stoves", you can walk
inside them, and they will hold an awful lot of whatever you put into them.

Also, the navy doesn't wait until night to dispose of trash off of the
fantail. It is done whenever the need arises whether it is day or night.
Seagulls that follow ships can't wait for the next dump, as they follow
ships all over the ocean. We had a flock of seagulls that followed a
Navy ship I was on one time, all the way from the Naval Weapons
Station in Concord, CA. clear to Subic Bay in the Phillipines. That was
a 21 day cruise, and the seagulls followed the ship the entire time.
Some don't believe this when I tell them this story, but seagulls will
follow a ship until a sunny beach turns into Antarctica.

The point about the trash is, 99% of it will be consumed by seagulls,
fish, sharks and whatever is roaming around in the ocean when the
trash is dumped, so VERY LITTLE is actually left as trash. The only
thing that would be detrimental to sealife, would of course be plastic
bags, cans and containers that are not biodegradible. If I remember
correctly, the trash that was thrown overboard on the ship I was on,
had paper sacks that would degrade in the salty water after a short time. So there is literally no "trash" or polution to the water or environment.

ZOOMER

To me dumping at sea is despicable. People are such pigs. Why don't you save the trash until you get home and dump it in your own back yard. To me dumping at sea should be one of the greatest environmental crimes.

I agree that this is absolutely reprehensible and the fact that nations feel that they can continuously pollute the waters of the world is nothing but sheer ignorance..

I was on a cruise a couple of years back and around midnight I was standing on the back of the boat, mind you a little tipsy, and I saw a ton of garbage being dumped. I almost thought that my eyes were deceiving me, but sure enough, the next night, I saw the exact same thing happening.

Why all of these seafaring ships have come to think that body of water=trash dump is beyond me. This kind of ingorance has reached such a fever pitch that we now have a floating heap of garbage twice the size of texas floating in the middle of the Pacific. Twice the size of Texas!!? What have we done to this great planet? If we as humans are supposed to treat this planet like a living organism as Mother Earth, then we have done nothing more than step on her, bludgeon her with a big water bottle, and bury her under a couple hundred years of trash.

No wonder this planet is fallign apart, look how we treat it. I am truely saddened. What a shame...

Originally posted by ZOOMER
Seagulls that follow ships can't wait for the next dump, as they follow
ships all over the ocean. We had a flock of seagulls that followed a
Navy ship I was on one time, all the way from the Naval Weapons
Station in Concord, CA. clear to Subic Bay in the Phillipines. That was
a 21 day cruise, and the seagulls followed the ship the entire time.

i've witnessed that. we also had a small bird stow away in a fan room for a ride.
we were also way out to sea. it is amazing.

The point about the trash is, 99% of it will be consumed by seagulls,
fish, sharks and whatever is roaming around in the ocean when the
trash is dumped, so VERY LITTLE is actually left as trash.

the trash i saw collected was a LOT of paper, plastic pop-bottles, consumer packaging of various goods from the ship's store (think cheetos bags), shaving cream cans, etc. LOTS of consumables that no birds or fish would ever eat. the food waste was minimal for our ship, so most of what i witnessed was not so bio-friendly. (served from '85-'88)

BUT, i do know the USN have made efforts to develop bio-degradable bags recently.

still looking to dump though:

The Navy's original plan to deal with MARPOL was two-fold. First, it would shred non- food waste such as cardboard and
waste into a slurry and pump the waste overboard. Glass and metal
would have been shredded and dumped in zones not covered by
MARPOL. However, at least one environmental group demanded a "zero-discharge" policy in special areas. As a result, the Navy did not
pursue pulping and shredding technology. At present, the Navy is
still searching for an adequate solution to deal with disposal of
non-food waste that does not include plastic.

info

Originally posted by Indy
To me dumping at sea is despicable. People are such pigs. Why don't you save the trash until you get home and dump it in your own back yard. To me dumping at sea should be one of the greatest environmental crimes.

well *people* aren't pigs as a whole, but agencies and facets of government ARE!
it really is despicable, the ocean IS finite btw.

reply to post by Don Wahn


the thing that scares me is to think about the math on the ships of the earth dumping at any moment. how many bags / volume is being dumped daily?

cruise ships are lethal consuming machines. anyone here a mathematician?

as for the north pacific gyre,
it will only grow. day after day, year after year of dumping are showing itself.

and in more recent news...

Munitions Dumping at Sea, by CR McClain:
"The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels."

full article




you know, it's a $1000 fine if you throw out a soda can from your car in marin county, CA. (not that you should EVER) so how about some fines and accountability for the US Army?...

just so disgusting...

)in regards to the trash dumping(

This problem would be very easily taken care of if the army and cruise lines would just use biodegradable materials. Then they could be safely tossed off the ship and return back into the food chain.

If enough evidence was collected showing that the worlds Navy's and cruise operators were practicing this 'fly tipping', then perhaps the people of the world have a good ground to sue over this mess....
www.abovetopsecret.com...'

Maybe that way the funds will be found to clear it all up.

Its not just Navy or Cruise Lines (ie Oil Platforms, all the ships that service them etc) theres actually International Laws Governing dumping trash overboard, and in most cases being out at sea makes it legal.

Not that its right.

Originally posted by Retikx
)in regards to the trash dumping(

This problem would be very easily taken care of if the army and cruise lines would just use biodegradable materials. Then they could be safely tossed off the ship and return back into the food chain.

yes in theory that would be awesome! but the prob is, that most of the trash is ship store type of trash. shaving cans, plastic shampoo bottles, etc) in order to stifle this, they would need to develop proprietary biodegradable containers and packaging of all sorts which i don't see happening.

Originally posted by ATruGod
Its not just Navy or Cruise Lines (ie Oil Platforms, all the ships that service them etc) theres actually International Laws Governing dumping trash overboard, and in most cases being out at sea makes it legal.

Not that its right.

correct. i think the dumping range starts at just 15 miles out at sea if i remember correctly.

did anyone read this link here?(!)
please read this article!

yes, "The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels."

sorry for the uber large text, but i don't think anyone is reading the article.








[edit on 3/16/2008 by zooplancton]

[edit on 3/16/2008 by zooplancton]