First and foremost no plastic should be thrown overboard under any circumstances. Food that has come in plastic wrappers, rinse the wrappers in salt water store in a plastic bag until port us reached and the plastic can be properly disposed. If the bag that the plastic is being stored in begins to smell pour in a little Clorox or other bleach and seal bag tightly. Plastic water bottles crush and pack for disposal ashore.
In the galley there should be three garbage receptacles, bio degradable, sinkable and plastic.
All food should go over side; it is biodegradable and will feed the fish.
Sinkable bottles and tin cans knock the bottom out of the bottles with a bottle breaker, a stainless steel or bronze rod 18" long with a sharp tip at the end. Store bottle breaker vertically in a rack in the cockpit so it is always handy.
Hold the bottle over side, give the bottle thru the neck a tap with the bottle breaker, bottom comes out and bottle over side.
Tin cans one end should be cut out completely so small fish do not go into the can grow and get trapped in the can!!!!
Once in the Caribbean food should go over side even in harbors as long as the harbor is open to the west, as long as the boat is between Grenada and Barbuda. North of Barbuda, most garbage should go over side except orange, lime, grapefruit skins and banana peels as these items will take a month or more to bio degrade. With the North West flowing current may end up on the beaches of the Virgin Island and Puerto Rico, thus they should be kept on board and properly disposed with ashore.
However in both the US and British Virgin islands despite the fact that both groups of island have a almost catastrophically bad solid waste disposal problem NOTHING should be thrown overboard!!!!!
Everything must be saved, packed in plastic bags and deposited ashore whenever you find trash receptacles. If heading west from the Virgin Islands to the Spanish Virgins and Puerto Rico, check in St. Thomas as to the regulations in these areas.
Bottles and tin cans should be disposed of as if at sea but ONLY IN DEEP WATER. Anchored in harbors keep the bottles and tin cans on board until you are in deep water.
In the islands nothing except plastic should be brought ashore and disposed of in the island garbage Collection points. Every island in the eastern Caribbean has a solid waste disposable problem that varies from being bad to very bad to catastrophically bad.
Bringing fresh food ashore either to eat to as garbage has been disastrous as various bugs that are on one island are carried to another sometimes with disastrous effect to the agricultural economy.
Two things that are absolutely NON BIODEGRADABLE are the filters on cigarettes and disposable diapers.
Filters from cigarette butts put in with the plastic.
If there are children on board in the diaper stage disposable diapers are not needed, go to the old fashioned cloth diapers. The fish do a wonderful job of cleaning them. Only four diapers are needed , one on the baby's bottom, one on the guard rail hanging over side being cleaned by the fish, one that has been cleaned by the fish drying on the guard rail, the fourth one on the guard rail has dried on the life line, has been rinsed in fresh water and hung out to dry.
Time for a clean diaper, the dirty on tie on a string and hang over side, the one over side cleaned by the fish hang on the guard rail, the one that has been hanging drying on the guard rail that has been cleaned by the fish, rinse in fresh water and re hang back on the guard rail. The one that has been rinsed in fresh water hung on the guard rail and dried, that goes on the bottom of the baby and the cycle is ready to start again.
That the system works as is illustrated by the fact that four street children have been raised on Iolaire and we never used disposable diapers.
To house train early as soon as the baby was old enough to sit up by themselves three or four times a day they were sat on a small plastic potty and given a book of pictures to read. As soon as action happened, high praise.
The system worked as all street children were out of diapers at(have to check for age date from my wife trick) but reading on the potty has come back to haunt us.
Iolaire has only one head, a street is inside, a line is forming, someone calls out "what the hell is taking you so long" reply "I am reading"!!!!!!
DM Street jr streetiolaire@hotmail.com www.street-iolaire.com
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