Leaderboard

I feel like the composting toilet is the progressive stance... it was mentioned earlier that this is a similar situation to when freshwater toilets were banned. I feel the progressive thing to do would be to move away from cassette/elsan disposal with the eventual aim of every boater having a composting toilet and CRT providing disposal facilities to match. What do land lubbers do when they fit a composting toilet in their house? I guess anyone making this choice has the space to complete composting. Like boaters not every one has this space, in fact I’d venture the majority do not. So what’s the solution, continue to use water toilets? This is not sustainable, ideally (like the shift to electric vehicles, inc. boats) there would be an incentive to shift towards composting toilets for everyone. I’m imagining big composting centres where the stuff form composting toilets can be taken to do its thing and this would just be a run if the mill municipal service that CRT could be a part of. I wonder what the cost (assuming we could magically switch overnight with no cost) of running a composting service would be to running and maintaining a sewage system, taking into account any environmental benefit. Obviously this is wishful thinking and it doesn’t help with the current situation... just thinking out loud. I also can’t help but think that on the whole people are pretty squeamish about their excrement, I bet this has something to do with the low uptake of composting systems, on land that is. Also it’s always been the case that demand has to increase before any kind of sensible system gets put in place to match it (electric cars being a good example). God forbid anyone should be told what to do, even if it’s for the best. Bloody know it all elites...

But one of the points is that according to CRT it was fit for purpose until last Friday. We thought long and hard about which toilet to have in our new boat in 2016. A big factor in our decision to go with a waterless one was that CRT said it was ok to use their bins. I feel we are going round in circles here. It nothing like running a car on unicorn wee because that doesn't exist. The permission from CRT to use the bins did exist. I'm getting fed up of people on here calling me irresponsible.

As I understand it, the process is fairly rapid, the cover material acts to dry the waste, combined with the stirring and the fan, it becomes the dry product that is being spoken about, we are talking days not weeks. This is why being described as composting is wrong, there is very little, if any, composting going on in the container that I can see at least, composting by it's very nature will produce smells and effluent which is fine in a controlled composting system, but not in the boats bog

You seem to be unaware of how these toilets work. The whole point of them is that they dry out whatever goes into the main chamber. It is not the same as crapping in a bucket, despite what you and others keep saying.

Just come across this post as been busy going to Coventry everyday for madams radiotherapy treatment. Looking at prices asked for old boats at the moment it would be very difficult to start out as we did. I had home made canoes since the age of 11 and explored the Nene with a couple of other adventurous school friends. After leaving the MN we hired on the Norfolk broads and this wetted our appetite to own a boat. We found a 19ft Dolphin at Aylesbury for £250 and when we went to collect it the compound it was in was part of a bankrupt enterprise. Our friend with the trailer jacked up the gate and away we went. At this time we were renting . Moved into our first house in 1968 with mortgage of 12.50 a week which was then my weeks earnings. After a couple of years brought a 20 ft senior fiberglass shell and fitted it out in a friends barn and launched it at Cayton in 1971 in time for the rally at Northampton. In 1974 together with 2 friends we brought Tadworth from BWB for 1500 and decided it must earn its keep so carried coal and in the summer camping boating. I don’t think we ever put any more money into it but used the modest profits to improve it. I also with another friend in 1981 brought Crane from Willow wren and this went camping as well. Our business was precast concrete and in the later 1980s we were very busy so sold the working boats and had the shell of half a Joey boat finished by WFBC which we used until 2001 when we sold it and brought a barge in Belgium.for the same price as the sale of the 50 ft NB. This barge was however 80 years old and somewhat neglected. We had been fortunate in getting a large contract at the Canary wharf development which doubled our size but it came with some risk. This job worked out well and until the mid 90s we had kept the companies turnover at a good level but the slump in construction hit us very hard so we decided to shut down. Over the past 18 years we have spent half a year on the continent and the winters in our modest house but are now without a boat due to ill health and miss it dreadfully. I think we had the best of both worlds by keeping a house and not turning a hobby (passion) into a business. Sorry to ramble on.

Fully composted which has been sterilised by the heat generated in the composting process would surely to be fine, bagged and put in the bins, it is the "semi composted" (or even worse "as produced" faeces) which is not particularly welcome in the bins. You go into some disgusting elsans by choice (you could even not go in and choose to use another one), however, bin-bag-sorters do not get the option to keep away from semi-composted, or sloppy faeces as the bags burst. When the bins are loaded into the bin lorry the contents are compressed by rams with '000s of pounds of pressure, if there is a stick, or a sharp bit of metal etc then the poop bags will burst and all the surrounding waste will become contaminated. To me. the answer is simple, if you do not have the correct facilities to properly compost then you shouldn't be using a composting toilet.

It seems simple, really. If the situation is that Biffa (or any other waste company) simply won't empty the bins if they contain this waste in any quantity, then that's the end of the argument about putting the bags in them. That bit is nowt to do with any CRT decision. If there is an alternative solution, it would have to provided nationally by CRT or by marinas, and it won't be, because it isn't financially viable due to the labour intensive nature of it. Any change may be unfair, but fairness is not a particularly big part of life. Biffa are bad enough at collecting skips already, don't want to make them any worse. I can see whoever makes PortaPottis getting flushed with success, if you'll pardon the phrase.

Some good points there. What you're asking is for people to try and think broadly and for the long term. This seems to be beyond the reach of many. Certainly, from a standing start, a composting system is cheaper than digging and building sewers. Over time, existing sewers must be expensive things to repair and maintain. I do wonder if, in 50 years time, people will be looking back and scratching their heads as to why were weren't all composting.

Ive made my feelings known to CRT about the changes...I think some widebeam owners bitched....its a shame that CRT gave in quite so easily....gives out the wrong message entirely in my opinion.

This is a discussion forum, not just about those who have the majority opinion being the only valid opinion and believed to be the correct one. I am not a great debater, nor do I have full knowledge of the topic but I doggedly continue and research in between times because discussion is about changing views and those entrenched views being open to an alternative or at least educating those who want to know. Edit to add: Im wiser now than I was at the beginning of this topic, I had been on the edge of purchasing a dry toilet just for the indoor benefits and transporting, cassettes are heavy! Now this situation has developed and arguments for and against have been put forward then on the whole Im glad I didn't buy one last week! But I do have a great deal of sympathy for those who did!

And therein lies the problem -- there isn't such an outlet, and nobody has come up with a way that they could be provided across the network which works financially and logistically... ? The obvious conclusion is that CC liveaboards with no land and no proper outlet for their waste shouldn't have a composting toilet. I'm sure the Foxes are going to be p*ssed off with this... If you go back to the last century, the cheapest and easiest and least smelly toilet solution by far for the canal boat was a sea/freshwater flush toilet, flush it out into the cut and job's done ? [I remember hiring boats using them -- no bloo, no filling tank, no pumpouts, just a nice clean flush like at home -- lovely for those inside the boat] When CaRT banned the use of these so that people had to use more expensive, less convenient, more unpleasant solutions like Elsan/cassettes or pumpouts, boaters using sea toilets had to switch to some other solution (and pay to change) even if it was less nice for them, because it was better for the canal as a whole and other people not to have turds floating in the canal. We now seem to be in exactly the same situation with composting toilets, except there are far fewer boaters using them so the overall pain of banning them is much less. Not for the 1% affected, but the 99% (and CaRT) end up better off as a result...

Mine is a simple system sawdust/coconut coir on bottom of container poo in container add veg matter from preparing veg to eat add sawdust as required, when full empty on compost heap at allotment along with green/brown waste leave 3 years and use, worms eat their way through it doing wormy stuff!

I must be doing something wrong, having not eaten meat for 40 years my fecal matter is anything but solid. If I bagged it it would be like Having a bag full of hummous. What a load of cobblers that statement is. Complete twaddle

The manufacturers generally sell their toilets to a wider market than just boats. So those who use them for glamping properties or houses away from mains drainage are in a much better position to carry out the full composting process than the majority of boat users. And so describing them as 'composting' toilets in advertising material is reasonable. But there is also an element of greenwashing going on. 'Composting' sounds so much nicer than the alternatives. And yes, I do think some of the manufacturers are turning a blind eye to the fact that a significant proportion of their customers have no intention of actually turning their waste into compost.

No they have not actually stated anything. Using 'should not' instead of 'must not' in one sentence is not policy. The discussion is now dominated here by peeps who dont like the idea of desiccated poo in CRT bins. Anyone who supports the idea is avoiding comment for fear of mass criticism. The inputs are therefore almost 100% against. The thread is now building strength based on cr&p assumptions and by peeps who dont understand the issue. An example is Alan who refers to smelly liquid waste being put in bins. No we are not doing a nappy disposal where smelly liquid human waste is put in bins. This is solids. Very solid. Like horse manure but not smelly. 99% of peeps here have never seen a picking line so do not know the hazards of waste segregation. Nappies and adult incontinence pads are dealt with very efficiently by leaving them on the belt. Its the stuff that contaminates all the other waste that goes to recycle that is the problem, like leaking nappies....and this is from my first hand knowledge on plastic recycling (I have part ownership of a plastic recycling company). Even more issue is food waste. It festers for 3 weeks and then spreads over everything. If peeps are really interested in recycling and assisting the picking line then we need dedicated food waste bags on the cut. What is the fate of chicken trays – the trays you buy in a supermarket. Covered in E-coli. Spread out in black bags. Go and have a look at a picking line. It may sway your views. There are bigger problems than desiccated poo in black bags. We then get to what has actually been said. The CRT have not banned these toilets and I will take Ian D's bet that they are banned any time soon. This is only a statement by Damien that is a 'should' not a 'must'. A few pages back, someone commented on the restriction of fat boats on the north Oxford being a similar problem – ie the CRT have turned a blind eye on it for years, neither supporting it or being against it..ie totally silent. Now they have said they allow it with restrictions. This is the 'contract law' stuff I was talking about pages back. I guess their lawyer say you cant ban fat boats as you have allowed it for years. I agree now, this is actually similar despite my original denial, but in this case the CRT actively encouraged the activity by putting in writing what to do. Once again, it is pointless arguing this as we need a contract lawyer, but my reading is that they do have an obligation. Ian's view is different. No point in arguing. The other thing that is being misrepresented is the illegality of putting it in a black bin. Alan keeps banging on that it is illegal due to waste transfer regulations. Once again we are clutching at straws. It is not clear. According to the words, and individual can put the solids +liquids!!!!! in a black bag as long as it is less than 7Kgs and only once in the 'cycle'. Think though about what this means. It has to be aimed at nappies put in a black bag then put in the wheelie bin. 7Kgs??? Sounds like nappies disposed of at 1kg per day for 7 days. No mention of 'dumpsters'. No one here knows the rules being applied to dumpsters. One bag of solid poo per week is far better than a weeks worth of stinking nappies for transport. Most of the comments on here are assuming what Biffa and CRT are thinking. Those assumptions are not fact and may be far from the truth. Anywho, I will continue to compost my waste and so this issue is not a problem for me but it is a concern for many. This problem will rumble on for years.

We used to fit the Shield LM110s in our hire fleet and also retail them. We stopped dealing with them about 5 years ago having become very dissatisfied with their performance. Their rep. admitted (after we had taken the business elsewhere) that they had dropped the quality to keep price down. From memory I'm also fairly sure he said the LM series are Chinese made and just filled with acid on arrival in the UK; not that I have anything against Chinese made batteries per se. Like most cheaper lead-acids, they have "lead calcium technology" which they will tell you has all sorts of benefits such as better recovery from over discharge, but they don't mention the 25% per month self-discharge rate and I suspect a vastly reduced cycle life*. They were averaging less than two years on the hire fleet towards the end of our time with them, in some cases failing** before batteries twice their age with the same label on. Shield's product may have improved since then - it certainly needed to. * We also tried a Yuasa product recommended by another supplier. Their idea of a "heavy duty off grid leisure battery" (according to the label) turned out to have a cycle life of 80 - so less than three months. None of them lasted a season and Yuasa wouldn't warrant a single one of about 20, because according to them they weren't intended for continued use off shore power. They weren't cheap either. ** We test batteries fairly regularly and replace them when they drop below 80A/hrs in the case of 110A/hr. I should also point out that some other makes (Exide for one) claiming to be 110A/hr actually couldn't provide 80A/hr on a C20 test when brand new. I haven't found a decent lead-acid since: We used a few Leoch SLAs as a stop-gap but as expected they didn't last for us either, then upgraded to Leoch AGM's. I was very pleased with them initially but a high percentage of them seem to fall off a cliff capacity-wise at around three years old in the hire fleet - they're still okay at older than that in private boats we look after. Currently we're running sets of AGM's from several different suppliers in the hire fleet, but none of them are old enough to have an opinion on them yet - and by the time we do trust them, they'll probably no longer be available! I still miss the old orange top Fulmens.....you knew where you were with those (a chiropractor, usually).

A few years ago on an overnight stop at Braunston, a fella on a brand new all chrome and white paint, white hull included (!) had a go at a fellow forum member whose Small Woolwich was breasted alongside MARQUIS demanding to know why we thought we could do that as he wouldnt have been able to get passed. He was asked how two fat boats might pass each other which brought on a grumpy response.

A boat very similar (identical) to that with a person onboard named very similar (identical) to those mentioned above passed through the Watford flight on Friday 29th Jan at 10:00am under a "special permission" from CRT. The guy told me why he was heading for Leicester and hence why C&RT had approved the passage, which may or may not be true. He had a dog onboard. C&RT has the name of the boat used (not Ruby), the index number used (which may not be this boat but is licensed) and the guys mobile number if the police need access to it. How do I know, i was the VLockie.... INC-20210216-0543 which force has this been issued by?

I thought this Raptor bed liner stuff was for bed wetters, or for incontinent Teradactyles to line their nests with.

Did you read the OP's first post or just Athy's?

I was very careful to credit you with doing the right thing -- you're not the cause of this problem, but you'll probably get caught in the backlash. Nobody argues that CaRT did say it was allowed to bag it and bin it; however given that the previous paragraph in the advice to boaters said that it should be composted, it should have been clear that you were taking a risk that permission to bin it could be withdrawn in the future. You interpreted the advice in the way that suited you, but there was clearly no legal guarantee that this change wouldn't happen -- and as somebody said earlier, it should have been obvious that if lots of compost boaters took the bin option this wasn't something sustainable in the long-term from CaRTs point of view. Hindsight is wonderful, but the writing was always on the wall (or at least, in the previous paragraph). As I keep saying, this is *exactly* the sea toilet issue all over again, except with far fewer people affected. If you'd bought a new boat 5 years before the sea toilet ban and installed one as the nicest option (because it was) I'm sure you'd be aggrieved when CaRT changed the rules and banned them (and the resulting floaters), but you wouldn't have any legal recourse to carry on dropping turds into the canal (because CaRT didn't say in their T&Cs that this freedom was guaranteed), you'd have to fit a new toilet. Being a victim of a change of circumstances intended to "clean up" the canals is unfortunate, but it's difficult to argue that the pollution should be allowed to continue to benefit the (very) few over the (very) many...

I am telling you that I empty the solids every three weeks, at that stage the material is not dry and odourless; its very similar to one year old leaf mould. That is slightly damp (squeezing it would not generate any liquid), smelling like leaf mould and inoffensive to handle (i.e. put in another container). I promise you that this is the case even though I have no dog in the ring because I don't ever throw the material away. Obviously I'm not able to confirm that this is the position for everybody with such a toilet but I (modestly) assume that my "output" is similar to everyone else's.

I have not said they dont work when the output is composted If the output in not fully composted then its just shit in a bag.

I didn't say it *would* be banned, it all depends how people like you react to the "should not" request. If people do as requested and stop doing the bin-and-chuck then CaRT will have accomplished what they set out to do, which is fixing the waste disposal problem. If people don't -- which I guess includes you, from your comments -- then they'll be faced with having to take more draconian action, or stop all waste collection from bins. I think that in this case they'll have no choice other than to ban the use of composting toilets, except maybe for people like Peter who can prove ("...to the satisfaction of the Board...") that they're composting the waste properly. What do you think CaRT will do if this happens i.e.. the bag-and-chuck-it boaters refuse to play ball? What is your suggestion for "an easy alternative", and who should pay for it? I suggest you stop trying to make all this "somebody else's problem" (which "they" have to fix) when it's actually yours...

Does that mean that all the people using them are lying?

And isn't this the problem with society as a whole? Too many self-entitled people who believe social responsibility and rules don't apply to them.

If it is used after a thorough cleaning, de rusting and priming of the bilge and engine bay area , then it might be worth it. Otherwise it will merely hide problems until they are discovered in the future, and probably too late to be fixable. Clean back to bare metal, kill any rust still visible, then paint, don’t cover things up!

Sorry, but could you clarify, the exact meaning of the sentence after 'but'? Apart from one well known outlier, advocate of weird methods of propulsion and fat boats there is, to my mind, no division of thinking, I got the impression most contributers are anti the disposal of shit to Biffa instead of sewage to elsan. Most contributers have an elsan based system. Kite flying is possible but unlikely, imho, more likely is a bit of a communications cock up. The CRT are getting better at spelling and grammar, but joined up thinking is still in it's infancy.

A postcode for deliveries of everything you find you need asap Torches Good boots that won't slip on mud or ice. Two goat chains and a good lump hammer. Five bags of coal for boats, three nets of logs, plus three packs of firelighters and three packs of kindling plus three boxes of matches. Clean the fuel tank, ie remove diesel, debris and water, if any found, add some diesel, repeat. Change fuel filter. More diesel. Diesel additive with upper cylinder lubricant, this will also clean the Webasto pump. Change engine oil, oil filter, gearbox fluid, all very specific to your engine. Engine de-greaser, some sacrificial brushes, including tooth, plenty of paper towels. Sacrificial jeans, T shirt, and some sort of gloves. Black bags. A good pocket knife two BW ie CRT keys (see leapfrogging) and two Cork float balls. Soap. You might well need new batteries if cc and boat has been in a marina for the last ten years, just make sure your starter battery is isolated from domestic, or your engine won't start one rather cold and miserable morning when you are on a muddy towpath five miles from anywhere. Stanley knife and junior hacksaw, hammer and chisel to remove sleeping bag welded to your propshaft. A bottle of malt for the guy who actually came to your rescue when stranded with said sleeping bag. Folks won't take cash for helping you out, so you need a few presents, Stella Artois x4 or Guinness Original x4, Laphroaig Select x1, Red wine x1, White wine x1. A £5 note for the guy who came to service the engine, and knew what he was doing. You're first day cruising will be so exciting you will leave your BW key in the lock, but you are going so slowly anyone can catch you up on foot. Put phone number on float. My daily check is engine oil, engine coolant, I believe the greaser should be turned while engine is running. check belt tension. Monthly check, all hoses, and look in the prop area, I suppose I should check gearbox oil. Annual check change everything previously mentioned, but not belt if I good condition. Plus grease nipples (rudder). Immediately before setting out on a river make sure you have diesel, and nothing wrapped round the prop (weed hatch). Anchor should be attached to boat.