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C&RT say don't empty your compost toilet in our bins.


Alan de Enfield

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1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

Not a lot. It works in the current system. Problem is most peeps here do not know it is happening and are disgusted at peeps putting dried poo in  a bin.  10,000 tonnes a week are binned. A bit of dried poo is going to be a drop in the ocean and no one will notice.

If you ban dried poo, why not ban dog poo? Its the same problem. Both are choices  that people have. Its not essential to have this type of loo or a dog. Is it?

But it's not dried poo, It had been described as fudge by "composters" and if it is not kept on the boat for any time the last poo in the system will still be poo, not dried.

 

Why do you think people do not know it is happening, I would have thought most people would be aware where nappies and dog poo goes, I admit there is probably some lack of knowledge about double incontinency, but I don't suppose there will be a lot of that, with people who use canal boats

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40 minutes ago, Dyertribe said:

Dog poo is unlikely to be deposited in the same amounts as human poo. 

 

You clearly have never owned a labrador.

 

My daughter's can sh1t for England.

 

Edit, canine dietary advice not required. Been there done that.

Edited by The Happy Nomad
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7 hours ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

You clearly have never owned a labrador.

 

My daughter's can sh1t for England.

 

Edit, canine dietary advice not required. Been there done that.

But does any of that actually end up in a normal CRT bin? Surely it mostly goes in a hedge if you are rural or council dog bins if in a town?

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2 hours ago, Dave123 said:

But does any of that actually end up in a normal CRT bin? Surely it mostly goes in a hedge if you are rural or council dog bins if in a town?

If you look at the links I posted on the other thread, the majority of it goes in to bins. Yes, some into dog poo bins but lots into normal bins. Dog poo bin contents are just tipped into the normal black bin stream.

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10 hours ago, Dyertribe said:


Dog poo is unlikely to be deposited in the same amounts as human poo. 

Various web sites come up with the same number. I posted links to those sites on another thread. Just Google amount of dog poo in the U.K. to confirm. The amount is 340g per dog per day for the average dog. That is over 2Kg per week which is just short of the 2.5 to 3Kg per person we produce. Have you got a dog. Our two dogs, a Clumber spaniel and a Golden retriever used to produce mountains of the stuff....which was all composted.

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So, many pages on in yet another poo bag topic I still fail to see the benefits whatsoever of a so called composting bog. A cassette is very simple and very quick to empty at numerous places around the system so when boating boaters pass one most days like water points and a couple of cassettes makes the job simple, its also a doddle job to do. Pumpout bogs less easy as the timing is more critical and there are way less places to pump out but still a doddle and easily sorted. 

Instalation costs are not a benefit as the plastic bins are a ridiculous price to buy and as with having to pass an elsan point you need to pass a rubbish bin site usualy already full and also empty seperately the urine thing even more often. What the hell is the point? There is absolutely zero smell with my macerater in use and non with my cassette with plenty of good old blue :help:in it. Pump outs can be a price thing I spose but in the greater scheme of things its not bank breaking.

From what I can see Peter le boat has the mooring and allotment to utilise the thing correctly but for most others not that many have them they make no sense. Dr Bob is a nutter, so much so that when he is in an area pubs close when they know he is attending ? so we can forgive him his choice but as for others??

One group I can see that likes them are continuous moorers so they can walk off with a bag of poo without having to boat and just chuck the wee in the cut out of the side doors ( we have all seen that ) One problem I would have also would be the value of the boat being reduced as 9 out of 10 buyers would have to factor in its removal and replacement. Just sayin like :D

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One thing to remember with dog-poo is that very few of the 7 million dogs will be making deposits on tow-paths, the vast majority will be in a domestic setting, or 'on the streets'.

 

There are over 20 million domestic waste bins and between 5 million and 8 million LA 'street bins'.

 

How many waste bins do C&RT have around the system ?

If they have (say) a compound every 5 miles (unlikely) with 4 bins in it that is a total of 1600 bins, the likelyhood of each bin receiving more than 7kgs per week (Dr Bobs quoted allowance from the waste regs) is unlikely, particularly as many seem to never reach the bin compounds.

 

On the subject of nappies - our nearest neighbour has a very handicapped child, (lives in a huge wheelchair with television etc) and they have a seperate bin with tiger stripe markings because they produce more that 7kgs per week of incontinence pads.

 

I requote DrBobs post from page 2

 

 

It's all very well Alan saying it is illegal to put the solids output from a composting loo in the bin but Alan this time you are not correct, regardless of what someone from the CRT says.

The government advice is

 

Examples

Waste status

Human healthcare

Animal healthcare

Healthcare offensive waste

Outer dressings and protective clothing like masks, gowns and gloves that are not contaminated with body fluids, and sterilised laboratory waste

Non-hazardous

18-01-04

18-02-03

Municipal offensive waste

Hygiene waste and sanitary protection like nappies and incontinence pads

Non-hazardous

20-01-99

20-01-99

You must segregate healthcare offensive waste from both clinical and mixed municipal wastes.

If you’ve produced more than 7kg of municipal offensive waste, or have more than one bag in a collection period, you must segregate it from any mixed municipal waste.

 

 

 

 

 

If C&RT were to introduce the CORRECT bins, and pay the going rate for special collections then Semi-composted toilet waste faciities could be provided, but, how would they be funded, and, how could their correct use be ensured ?

 

 

 

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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11 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

If C&RT were to introduce the CORRECT bins, and pay the going rate for special collections then Semi-composted toilet waste faciities could be provided, but, how would they be funded, and, how could their correct use be ensured ?

 

Licence addition, locked bins?   I'm sorry that I dont know the costings for such, but I'm willing at least to have the conversation and if I have time to try and find that information.  

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Just now, Chagall said:

Licence addition, locked bins?   I'm sorry that I dont know the costings for such, but I'm willing at least to have the conversation and if I have time to try and find that information.  

 

Locked bins would stop the placing of the 'wrong' waste in the bin. but it could also be a deterrent to the correct use ..................

 

Oops I've left my bin-key on the boat, never mind I'll just put it in the general waste bin, just once won't matter, or, 

I haven't old C&RT I've got a composting toilet so haven't got a key, I just dump it in the general waste, no one will know it was me.

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1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Locked bins would stop the placing of the 'wrong' waste in the bin. but it could also be a deterrent to the correct use ..................

 

Oops I've left my bin-key on the boat, never mind I'll just put it in the general waste bin, just once won't matter, or, 

I haven't old C&RT I've got a composting toilet so haven't got a key, I just dump it in the general waste, no one will know it was me.

'Twas ever thus'  ...but at least the chance for the majority to act responsibly could be given. 

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12 minutes ago, Chagall said:

Licence addition, locked bins?   I'm sorry that I dont know the costings for such, but I'm willing at least to have the conversation and if I have time to try and find that information.  

We had that conversation about 20 pages back after I suggested it... ?

 

I even came up with some guesstimated costings to provide the bin-emptying service, but some people didn't like these because they showed that it would cost more than pumpouts. Feel free to come up with your own figures...

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1 minute ago, IanD said:

We had that conversation about 20 pages back after I suggested it... ?

 

I even came up with some guesstimated costings to provide the bin-emptying service, but some people didn't like these because they showed that it would cost more than pumpouts. Feel free to come up with your own figures...

How do you know that most and not "some" dont like those figures, did you provide a poll?  I remember your post with the guesstimated costings but if I recall correctly it was mainly in the negative to bolster your opinion that it couldn't be a workable solution. 

 

It would likely cost more than pump-outs for the initial set up, but eventually (agreed, in an ideal world) it could begin to show a reduction in costs, either down to less management of pump-outs and less blockage in elsans and eventually the sale of valuable compost material.  

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4 minutes ago, Chagall said:

'Twas ever thus'  ...but at least the chance for the majority to act responsibly could be given. 

 

 

1 minute ago, IanD said:

We had that conversation about 20 pages back after I suggested it... ?

 

I even came up with some guesstimated costings to provide the bin-emptying service, but some people didn't like these because they showed that it would cost more than pumpouts. Feel free to come up with your own figures...

 

 

Some figures to start the discussions again.

 

 

We pay ~£20 + VAT per week for our standard collection 'municipal/general wast Biffa bins.

No doubt C&RT would get a volume discount, but the cost could be higher as its 'offensive waste' or lower as it can go straight to land fill. (Biffa would not appear to be in the business of ripping open the bags and putting the contents into composting heaps).

 

Lets guess that C&RT have 500 bin compounds with one 'poop-in-a-bag' bin per compound. You cannot call them composting bins as a % of it will be fresh, and all of it will be in bin-bags.

Lets say that the bins are emptied on a 2-week cycle (not that they will necessarily be full, but would full of flies etc by then)

 

500 bins x £20 = £10,000 or £5000 per week, or £250,000 per annum

 

That would work out at £10 per boat licence per annum, of if the 'producer pays' maybe (who knows how many boats there are with Composting toilets) £1000 per annum

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Just to try and shut down the nappies debate once and for all, though I doubt this will work...

 

Disposable nappies are regarded my many as evil, but by most as an unpleasant necessity in the modern world -- if there was a referendum on them tomorrow (should they be banned?) I'd expect the majority would say "no".

 

The waste system has to deal with these and does so successfully, because it's what society wants to happen.

 

Now let's compare the amount of nappies and the poo in them with the amount of human waste that doesn't go into nappies. If you look at the quantity of poo a baby produces, how many years it wears a nappy, and how many babies there are in the UK, and compare these numbers to everyone else, the conclusion is that the total volume/weight of baby poo per year is about 100x smaller than non-baby-poo. Even if you take Bob's proposal that it's the entire nappy that counts as toxic so this should be compared to non-composting-toilet waste, a typical used nappy is <10% poo by weight, which means the volume/weight of nappy waste is still >10x smaller than non-baby-poo.

 

All of which explains why we allow nappies to go into the waste system but non-baby-poo goes into the sewers -- you might think the nappy mountain is big, but it's way *way* smaller than the amount of poo that goes into sewage works.

 

As far as CaRT are concerned nappies are less of a problem than in the general waste system as a whole anyway, because there are proportionally a lot fewer babies living on the canals than in the general population. So nappies in CaRT bins are fine.

 

The same was true when there were only a tiny number of bag'n'binners, they basically flew "under the radar" -- CaRT didn't want the poo to end up in their bins ("should be composted") but were OK with it so long as the quantities were small (like nappies) and Biffa didn't object ("...double-bagged and placed in bins..."). However faced with the rising number of bag'n'binners, the realisation that if this continued they could end up with far more of this waste in the bins than from nappies, and notification from Biffa that they didn't want to deal with it, they decided that this practice has to stop.

 

Again this is all factual, nothing to do with opinions of disgust or the morals of bag'n'binners or persecution of them. Nappies are not a valid reason to allow this practice to continue.

 

Now, about dogs... ?

Edited by IanD
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Hi all, I come to this debate from the position of boater with a cassette toilet but have for some time been considering swapping it out for a dry toilet (I use that term rather than composting as I have no facility to fully compost the resulting material). I note the CRT article says that composting toilets should not be emptied into Elsans as they risk blocking them. The whole point is ofcourse the material is not composted. The dry toilet I have been considering says in the use instructions that it is not necessary to add any drying material such as sawdust or wood shavings to the solids bin. Consequently the only material ending up in the bin should be excrement and toilet paper. That said, why should that not be disposed into an Elsan. I estimate the container would be emptied every 1-2 weeks so little composting will have taken place. I appreciate that a 20 litre solids container would contain more solid material than a 17 litre cassette but I don't see it would cause blockages if flushed away with plenty of rinsing water. Surely if an Elsan can cope with the amount of material from a holding tank being self pumped out then a small bucket would cause it no problem. The reasons I was considering swapping are my cassette (I have three) lasts us two days before it needs emptying, and disposing of "dry" material seems less horrific than the excrement/urine soup you get in a cassette and no need for chemicals.   

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1 hour ago, Chagall said:

How do you know that most and not "some" dont like those figures, did you provide a poll?  I remember your post with the guesstimated costings but if I recall correctly it was mainly in the negative to bolster your opinion that it couldn't be a workable solution. 

 

It would likely cost more than pump-outs for the initial set up, but eventually (agreed, in an ideal world) it could begin to show a reduction in costs, either down to less management of pump-outs and less blockage in elsans and eventually the sale of valuable compost material.  

Because I know "some" to be true, given by the responses. I don't know "most" to be true, and neither do you. Go and look up the meanings of the two words...

 

I'm glad you agree that it would cost more than pump-outs, at least initially. Presumably this assumes that the cost is shared out across all the boaters who have composting loos installed?

 

This seems unlikely, given that about 30% already compost properly, and a significant part of the remaining 70% installed these toilets to avoid paying for pumpouts, so will either remove them or carry on clandestinely using the free CaRT bins instead of the pay-to-poo lockable compost bins.

 

Let's say this means only half of the non-composting boaters will choose to travel to a poo-point and pay (choose a different figure if you want, but it has to be reasonable) which now means the entire cost of the pay-to-poo system has to be met by about a third of the boaters who have composting toilets fitted.

 

Now work out how much this would cost compared to pumpouts -- again, using sensible assumptions. My guesstimate was 3x as much, you might come up with something different.

 

If pumpouts cost £5 a week (£15 every 3 weeks), this means non-composted-waste disposal would cost £15 per week -- which funnily enough is pretty close to the £1000/year figure Alan came up with above.

 

How many boaters do you think will be willing to pay this?

 

If you don't like mine and Alan's numbers then of course you can provide your own, but -- as they say in maths exams -- show your working ?

 

The economics of putting in a new waste disposal network for a tiny number of boaters simply don't work. Yes this might be very different if half the boaters (say 15000) installed composting loos, but that's not where we are and we're not going to get there for tens of years while most boats use pumpouts or cassettes -- which means, never, unless legislation forces *everyone* to switch to composting loos.

 

We have to deal with the world as it actually is, not as we'd ideally like it to be.

Edited by IanD
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10 minutes ago, MichaelG said:

Hi all, I come to this debate from the position of boater with a cassette toilet but have for some time been considering swapping it out for a dry toilet (I use that term rather than composting as I have no facility to fully compost the resulting material). I note the CRT article says that composting toilets should not be emptied into Elsans as they risk blocking them. The whole point is ofcourse the material is not composted. The dry toilet I have been considering says in the use instructions that it is not necessary to add any drying material such as sawdust or wood shavings to the solids bin. Consequently the only material ending up in the bin should be excrement and toilet paper. That said, why should that not be disposed into an Elsan. I estimate the container would be emptied every 1-2 weeks so little composting will have taken place. I appreciate that a 20 litre solids container would contain more solid material than a 17 litre cassette but I don't see it would cause blockages if flushed away with plenty of rinsing water. Surely if an Elsan can cope with the amount of material from a holding tank being self pumped out then a small bucket would cause it no problem. The reasons I was considering swapping are my cassette (I have three) lasts us two days before it needs emptying, and disposing of "dry" material seems less horrific than the excrement/urine soup you get in a cassette and no need for chemicals.   

The sewers and Elsan points are designed to deal with waste which is almost entirely water; if you want to put several weeks worth of dried poo into the system, you'd need to flush it away with tens of gallons of water to prevent blockages, in other words stand there running a rinse water tap for maybe five or ten minutes while sprinkling the poo in, or possibly even longer given the speed that water taps on the system often run at.

 

Most people simply won't do this, because there's nobody to make them and they don't want to stand over a stinky waste point for any length of time; they'll bung the poo in with as little water as they can use to make it go down the drain, and then leave. End result, a blocked Elsan point that CaRT have to come out and clear. Which is why CaRT say you can't do this.

 

Sorry but that's just human nature ?

Edited by IanD
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There's a lot of assumption made on here that people are just installing dry toilets to somehow 'get out of paying' for disposing of their waste. That may be true in some cases but a lot of boaters are utterly sick of the state of toilet disposal on many parts of the network.

 

My last trip pre-lockdown was from Peterborough to Tring to Liverpool over 4-5 weeks, covering several hundred miles. Our boat has a small Pump-Out tank which lasts 2 weeks at best (often less) with 2 people living aboard. I could count on one hand the number of CRT Pump-Out stations we passed, and even fewer were serviceable.

 

The marinas seem more and more hostile to Pump-Out users nowadays. I must have asked at around 6/7 marinas (many of which actively advertised the service) yet only 1 would actually pump my boat out. Excuses included pump not working, too busy, can't do it in the rain, can't be arsed, not worth my time etc.

 

I know Elsans are more plentiful and simpler to maintain, (in fact we have a chemical porta potti as a backup) but these seem to be in a worsening state of disrepair nowadays as well.

 

I know many boaters who have similar (or worse) experiences on a regular basis, and it's not just down to lack of planning on their part. Dry toilets have been sold (rightly or wrongly) as a way of having greater control over when and where you can empty your toilet. We can talk til the cows come home about the moral and legal implications of how people are doing it, but painting the bag & binners as "those dirty nasty people over there" is just childish and won't help solve the underlying problem.

 

 

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35 minutes ago, BrumBargee said:

There's a lot of assumption made on here that people are just installing dry toilets to somehow 'get out of paying' for disposing of their waste. That may be true in some cases but a lot of boaters are utterly sick of the state of toilet disposal on many parts of the network.

I'm not sure how a valid concern about the state of toilet disposal on many parts of the network entitles dry toilet users to inflict similar conditions on the rubbish disposal facilities on many parts of the network.

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1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I'm not sure how a valid concern about the state of toilet disposal on many parts of the network entitles dry toilet users to inflict similar conditions on the rubbish disposal facilities on many parts of the network.

It doesn't, but it goes some way to understanding the reasoning behind why people have installed them in the first place.

 

It also feeds in to root cause analysis of the problem which CRT et al. Should be conducting. If you want people to stick to Elsan & Pump-Out, then remove the barriers to them doing so (e.g. serviceability, availability, frequency etc.)

 

To be honest I doubt they are that concerned at this stage, the numbers of people doing it are so small (low 100s) that it can't exactly be topping their list of priorities right now.

Edited by BrumBargee
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50 minutes ago, BrumBargee said:

There's a lot of assumption made on here that people are just installing dry toilets to somehow 'get out of paying' for disposing of their waste. That may be true in some cases but a lot of boaters are utterly sick of the state of toilet disposal on many parts of the network.

 

My last trip pre-lockdown was from Peterborough to Tring to Liverpool over 4-5 weeks, covering several hundred miles. Our boat has a small Pump-Out tank which lasts 2 weeks at best (often less) with 2 people living aboard. I could count on one hand the number of CRT Pump-Out stations we passed, and even fewer were serviceable.

 

The marinas seem more and more hostile to Pump-Out users nowadays. I must have asked at around 6/7 marinas (many of which actively advertised the service) yet only 1 would actually pump my boat out. Excuses included pump not working, too busy, can't do it in the rain, can't be arsed, not worth my time etc.

 

I know Elsans are more plentiful and simpler to maintain, (in fact we have a chemical porta potti as a backup) but these seem to be in a worsening state of disrepair nowadays as well.

 

I know many boaters who have similar (or worse) experiences on a regular basis, and it's not just down to lack of planning on their part. Dry toilets have been sold (rightly or wrongly) as a way of having greater control over when and where you can empty your toilet. We can talk til the cows come home about the moral and legal implications of how people are doing it, but painting the bag & binners as "those dirty nasty people over there" is just childish and won't help solve the underlying problem.

 

 

The answer isn’t to fill the general waste bins with unprocessed human crap!  I’ve never had an issue either with my pump out or the grotty potti back up. We pump out using our own pump at suitable SS or CRT pump outs....or at yards etc. 
 

We travel a lot over the summer as well. 

Edited by frangar
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1 hour ago, BrumBargee said:

It doesn't, but it goes some way to understanding the reasoning behind why people have installed them in the first place.

 

It also feeds in to root cause analysis of the problem which CRT et al. Should be conducting. If you want people to stick to Elsan & Pump-Out, then remove the barriers to them doing so (e.g. serviceability, availability, frequency etc.)

 

To be honest I doubt they are that concerned at this stage, the numbers of people doing it are so small (low 100s) that it can't exactly be topping their list of priorities right now.

I suspect you are right but the problem is that the consequences of the small impact directly made by binning have the potential of having a very big impact on everyone else if the bin collectors (largely Biffa?) decline to offer the service. 

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48 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I suspect you are right but the problem is that the consequences of the small impact directly made by binning have the potential of having a very big impact on everyone else if the bin collectors (largely Biffa?) decline to offer the service. 

It does seem that's a risk. I don't think Biffa would point blank refuse to collect the waste (they can provide services that collect much more dangerous waste than just poo), but the cost to CRT will inevitably go up if they want to depart from their current waste arrangements.

 

CRT's current stance seems to be one of 'managing defiance'. They've taken the very minor step of saying it's something you "shouldn't" do in the hope that it will discourage further adoption, but they know they can't stop the existing practice for the time being.

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4 minutes ago, BrumBargee said:

It does seem that's a risk. I don't think Biffa would point blank refuse to collect the waste (they can provide services that collect much more dangerous waste than just poo), but the cost to CRT will inevitably go up if they want to depart from their current waste arrangements.

 

CRT's current stance seems to be one of 'managing defiance'. They've taken the very minor step of saying it's something you "shouldn't" do in the hope that it will discourage further adoption, but they know they can't stop the existing practice for the time being.

There's a much bigger risk if composting fans keep on arguing that "it doesn't smell really" or "nappies and dog poo are just as bad or worse", as has being going on for many pages, complete with numbers about dog poo size and frequency.

 

The person who was mainly responsible for this asked me privately to "stop my campaign against composting toilets" because some marinas have cottoned on to these arguments, and are now saying that since they banned composting toilets (which unlike CaRT they can easily enforce by not allowing boats with them to moor in the marina), if dog poo is even worse then maybe we should ban dog poo from our bins as well -- which they can presumably do by not allowing boats with dogs to moor either...

 

This is not me panic-mongering or whipping up resentment against composting toilets, it's a request from a composting supporter to please stop arguing about this in public, because it's now raised the dog-poo issue and the consequences could be severe.

 

It should be obvious even to dog-poo haters that marinas doing this is grossly unfair since the same ban doesn't apply to the 1000x more dogs whose owners live in houses; there are a lot of people with dogs on the canals (far more than with babies), and marinas either banning them from marinas or even saying that they can't use their bins for the bags would have a huge detrimental effect on the canal community. Unfortunately marinas could probably do this legally, fair or not, because they get to choose who moors there.

 

I agreed to stop posting if the pro-composters did the same, and it seems to have got quieter, but hasn't stopped. For the good of the canal community, could I suggest that other people do the same?

 

If any pro-composters want to still continue putting their arguments forward (which they can of course do, free speech and all that...) they can start and own a thread of their own; that way if the raging poo fire ignites again and other boaters (e.g. dog owners) suffer the consequences, it will be clear where the blame lies. I would hope they'd resist the temptation to do this, no matter how much they want to personally, to avoid the possible negative impact on the boating community.

 

I'm going to ask the moderators to close the thread I started to any further comments (and copy this post to it), maybe Alan could do the same with this thread?

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