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


Alan de Enfield

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13 minutes ago, matty40s said:

What EA bins on the Nene??

You have to google maps and look locally for roadside bins in local towns and villages, put your rubbish into small bags and share it out amongst several bins. Wellingborough Park has many public bins, theres one by the bridge traffic lights above the Thrapston moorings....one by the park in Ringstead...

 

Etc etc etc.

According to Jones Boatyard: "The Great Ouse and its tributaries, the Nene and the Middle Level are all fairly unique in allowing the use of sea toilets." So those who are happy to empty the contents of their loo into the waterways in these places are free to do so; no need for bins 💩!

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Just now, Bargebuilder said:

According to Jones Boatyard: "The Great Ouse and its tributaries, the Nene and the Middle Level are all fairly unique in allowing the use of sea toilets." So those who are happy to empty the contents of their loo into the waterways in these places are free to do so; no need for bins 💩!

 

As you can in most rivers.

 

Environmental legislation specifically allows sewage to be discharged from boats

 

See section 2(b)

 

 

Screenshot (550).png

 

 

 

The EA "Position Statement" on Composting Toilets (2011)

 

 

 

EA Poition Statement Composting Toilets.pdf

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1 hour ago, matty40s said:

What EA bins on the Nene??

You have to google maps and look locally for roadside bins in local towns and villages, put your rubbish into small bags and share it out amongst several bins. Wellingborough Park has many public bins, theres one by the bridge traffic lights above the Thrapston moorings....one by the park in Ringstead...

 

Etc etc etc.

OK, I'll be more specific, what about the EA bins on the Thames, most of which seem to be Suez bins?

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6 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

OK, I'll be more specific, what about the EA bins on the Thames, most of which seem to be Suez bins?

 

The EA state that PROPERLY composted toilet waste can be put in the black bags and put in the normal rubbish.

 

Speculation :

 

I'd suggest that if they or their bin contractors found bags of sloppy / fresh poop in the bins the practice would soon be stopped.

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2 hours ago, matty40s said:

What EA bins on the Nene??

You have to google maps and look locally for roadside bins in local towns and villages, put your rubbish into small bags and share it out amongst several bins. Wellingborough Park has many public bins, theres one by the bridge traffic lights above the Thrapston moorings....one by the park in Ringstead...

 

Etc etc etc.

A bit like the Broads

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

You mean the Elsan where there's nowhere to moor even when it's working?

I seem to remember you use to be able to moor that side at one time

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14 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think Biffa are only contracted to empty the bins and then only if they can wheel them to their truck. Not to clear up the mountains of stuff left round the bin. Try it with a domestic wheely bin and see the result. I also note that all the bins at Atherstone top lock are still Biffa

I'm sure you're correct. I also suspect a lot of the "stuff round bins" problem is because they're not emptied frequently enough (or are too few) given the level of use some (many?) bins get; Biffa probably have a contract which says "empty bins every xx days" regardless of how much they're used, so in popular locations they fill up fast and then the extra waste is dumped next to them. The contract should either specify emptying intervals which match usage, or there should be more bins in popular spots if the interval is fixed. Yes this might mean CART paying more to provide a better (less sh*t?) service to boaters...

 

Whether all this is the fault of CART (poor contracts) or Biffa (not doing their job properly) isn't clear, but it certainly *should* be done better, and maybe changing contractors gives an opportunity to improve the service. Making the bins only accessible with a CART key might also discourage non-boaters (who don't pay for the service via the license fee) dumping their crap there.

 

Doesn't mean any of this (more bins, more frequent emptying, controlled access) will happen with the new contractor, but we can always hope... 😉

Edited by IanD
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10 hours ago, IanD said:

Making the bins only accessible with a CART key might also discourage non-boaters (who don't pay for the service via the license fee) dumping their crap there.

I've come across many bin areas which are behind a CRT padlock but some boaters don't lock the compound when leaving, locks can get broken off or removed, and any non boatowner can get hold of a CRT key.

 

Some sort of smart card actuated lock, linked to the individual licence holder's account might help stop non boat owners using the facilities, but the system would likely be costly to install, and potentially a maintenance/reliability headache.

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On 09/08/2021 at 18:16, PD1964 said:

The Thread is about CaRT Bins and not knowing who is responsible for the bins you mentioned I thought you were talking about CaRT bins, since you never mentioned they were National Trust.

  So can boaters put their compost waste in NT Bins? or have the NT come to the same findings as CaRT and asked composting toilet users not to use their bins?

My comment was about the ways in which bins and bin stores are misused and by whom.  How many times does one find a bin store with all sorts of 'stuff' left lying around?

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On 09/08/2021 at 21:47, Bargebuilder said:

According to Jones Boatyard: "The Great Ouse and its tributaries, the Nene and the Middle Level are all fairly unique in allowing the use of sea toilets." So those who are happy to empty the contents of their loo into the waterways in these places are free to do so; no need for bins 💩!

Jones Boat Yard is wrong as regards to the Middle Level. It is not permitted under section 35 of the Middle Level Navagation By-Laws 2020.

 

35. Use of vessels with sanitary appliances

(i) Subject to the provisions of Byelaw 35(iii), the owner of a vessel shall not use or
knowingly permit to be used on a waterway any vessel provided with a sanitary appliance
of such design that polluting matter normally passes or can pass into a waterway.


(ii) Subject to the provisions of Byelaw 35(iii), where any vessel is fitted with a sanitary
appliance, such appliance shall be so designed, constructed and at all times maintained as
necessary to prevent any such passage as aforesaid.


(iii) (a) The owner of every vessel on a waterway, if such vessel is fitted with a sanitary
appliance so designed or constructed as to permit the passage into the waterway of
polluting matter, shall, as soon as practicable, give notice to the Commissioners,
specifying the nature of such appliance. The said owner shall also, upon being
requested by the Commissioners so to do, take such steps by way of sealing or
otherwise as may be reasonably necessary for preventing the passage into the
waterway of polluting matter from the vessel, so long as the vessel remains on the
waterways. So long as the vessel remains on the waterways, no interference or
alteration shall be made with the sealing or other steps so taken as aforesaid, except
with the consent of the Commissioners and


(b) The master of the vessel shall, at the request of an authorised officer (on production,
if so requested, of evidence of his authority), afford reasonable facilities to that
officer for the inspection of such sealing and other steps.


(iv) No person shall discharge or cause or permit to be discharged any polluting matter into
the waterways from any vessel or from any sanitary appliance used thereon.

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

My comment was about the ways in which bins and bin stores are misused and by whom.  How many times does one find a bin store with all sorts of 'stuff' left lying around?

Oh, was it.  It looked like your comment was in reply to Arthur’s post about dog poo bags hanging on trees.

Edited by PD1964
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1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I've come across many bin areas which are behind a CRT padlock but some boaters don't lock the compound when leaving, locks can get broken off or removed, and any non boatowner can get hold of a CRT key.

 

Some sort of smart card actuated lock, linked to the individual licence holder's account might help stop non boat owners using the facilities, but the system would likely be costly to install, and potentially a maintenance/reliability headache.

Agreed about the difficulties, but surely it ought to be possible to come up with better than what we have now?

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On 09/08/2021 at 23:31, Alan de Enfield said:

 

The EA state that PROPERLY composted toilet waste can be put in the black bags and put in the normal rubbish.

 

Speculation :

 

I'd suggest that if they or their bin contractors found bags of sloppy / fresh poop in the bins the practice would soon be stopped.

I've known of sloppy/fresh poop being disposed of in bins by people who have never seen a composting loo let alone own one.

Waste from composting loos, provided it has shavings or similar added regularly and stored for a couple of months, is almost dry and odourless so there is no reason why it shouldn't go to landfill. 

I've also known of people emptying their cassette toilets into the cut. No doubt there have been instances of pump out tanks being discharged into canals.

Perhaps the only answer to all these bandits is to ban toilets on boats altogether and install public loos every hundred yards along all waterways.

 

Keith

 

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17 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I am at Sutton Cheney and the Biffa bins have all gone, the only thing in the bin compound is an old gas fridge and gas grill, no skips. There is a large skip behind the Bin compound with what looks like 15lt of dirty diesel beside it

In my experience most of the grot is from boaters.  Over the years I have liberated many dumped batteries and weighed them in - enough to buy a stainless steel chimney.

As for locks, smart card locks and other elaborate arrangements your average dumper will just lob their rubbish over the fence. 

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1 hour ago, Steilsteven said:

I've known of sloppy/fresh poop being disposed of in bins by people who have never seen a composting loo let alone own one.

Waste from composting loos, provided it has shavings or similar added regularly and stored for a couple of months, is almost dry and odourless so there is no reason why it shouldn't go to landfill. 

I've also known of people emptying their cassette toilets into the cut. No doubt there have been instances of pump out tanks being discharged into canals.

Perhaps the only answer to all these bandits is to ban toilets on boats altogether and install public loos every hundred yards along all waterways.

 

Keith

 

70% of composting toilet owners (about 700 out of 1000 total on the canals) don't compost their waste properly and bag'n'bin it. Not invented, figures from a large survey of composting toilet users.

 

Since there are more than 30000 of them, the percentage of cassette/pumpout toilet owners who don't follow the rules is presumably tiny, or the canals would be literally swimming in poo. Let's be pessimistic and assume there are a few hundred of them, perhaps 1% at most -- the exact number doesn't really matter.

 

Which type of boater is the most guilty of inappropriate disposal of toilet waste -- the type where 30% do it properly and 70% don't, or the type where 99% do it properly and 1% don't?

Edited by IanD
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17 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I am at Sutton Cheney and the Biffa bins have all gone, the only thing in the bin compound is an old gas fridge and gas grill, no skips. There is a large skip behind the Bin compound with what looks like 15lt of dirty diesel beside it

Still Biffa at Grendon, I do hope they replace the bins when they do go fairly sheepish, otherwise there will be shite everywhere 

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5 hours ago, IanD said:

70% of composting toilet owners (about 700 out of 1000 total on the canals) don't compost their waste properly and bag'n'bin it. Not invented, figures from a large survey of composting toilet users.

 

Since there are more than 30000 of them, the percentage of cassette/pumpout toilet owners who don't follow the rules is presumably tiny, or the canals would be literally swimming in poo. Let's be pessimistic and assume there are a few hundred of them, perhaps 1% at most -- the exact number doesn't really matter.

 

Which type of boater is the most guilty of inappropriate disposal of toilet waste -- the type where 30% do it properly and 70% don't, or the type where 99% do it properly and 1% don't?

I presume the survey you quote is the one taken on the "Compost Toilets for Boats and Off Grid Living" facebook group? If so that survey is about 6 months out of date. We took part in that survey and at the time we did bag and bin as previous advice from CRT allowed us to do so. Seeing as how we are no longer allowed to do this we have changed our habits and now store the composting poo and then take it back to our house and put it on the compost heap. We know quite a few fellow composters who used to bag and bin. All have changed their habits as a result of the new rules, some do like us, some have replaced their toilets with cassette versions, some are hot composting (a much quicker process). None of them continue to bag and bin even though until the end of the year we are allowed to do so. So you need to find some new figures to massage if you wish to continue to slag us off.

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On 10/08/2021 at 21:16, ditchcrawler said:

I am at Sutton Cheney and the Biffa bins have all gone, the only thing in the bin compound is an old gas fridge and gas grill, no skips. There is a large skip behind the Bin compound with what looks like 15lt of dirty diesel beside it

Well  the new bin was put in the compound just before lunch this morning,  only one so I dont know how often they will empty it

smallDSCF5483.jpg

 

Here you can see the fridge and cooker taken yesterday

smallIMG_20210811_092807.jpg

Edited by ditchcrawler
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1 hour ago, Alway Swilby said:

I presume the survey you quote is the one taken on the "Compost Toilets for Boats and Off Grid Living" facebook group? If so that survey is about 6 months out of date. We took part in that survey and at the time we did bag and bin as previous advice from CRT allowed us to do so. Seeing as how we are no longer allowed to do this we have changed our habits and now store the composting poo and then take it back to our house and put it on the compost heap. We know quite a few fellow composters who used to bag and bin. All have changed their habits as a result of the new rules, some do like us, some have replaced their toilets with cassette versions, some are hot composting (a much quicker process). None of them continue to bag and bin even though until the end of the year we are allowed to do so. So you need to find some new figures to massage if you wish to continue to slag us off.

If the majority of composters have changed their behaviour to comply with the latest CART rules since the survey then that would indeed be great news.

 

But I'll believe it when I see the numbers for everyone, not just you and "a few fellow composters", because this is exactly the same "me and my mates" argument that Peter uses to tell us how everyone he knows does it properly.

 

Which is true for him and his mates, they're the good guys, and is quite possibly the same for you and your friends for the same reason -- but you're extrapolating what you do to say that therefore everyone else is doing the same, which might or might not be true.

 

There are lots of boaters out there who adopted composting toilets to save money and because it was convenient, and who have no way of disposing of the waste other than bag'n'binning, as seen in many blogs. I'll believe that they've all changed like you when there's evidence of this, for example comprehensive updated survey results.

 

If you want to stop being "slagged off", then show that composters behaviour -- all of them -- has genuinely changed, and everyone -- me included -- will be happy that the problem is solved 🙂

 

Over to you... 😉

Edited by IanD
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28 minutes ago, IanD said:

If the majority of composters have changed their behaviour to comply with the latest CART rules since the survey then that would indeed be great news.

 

But I'll believe it when I see the numbers for everyone, not just you and "a few fellow composters", because this is exactly the same "me and my mates" argument that Peter uses to tell us how everyone he knows does it properly.

 

Which is true for him and his mates, they're the good guys, and is quite possibly the same for you and your friends for the same reason -- but you're extrapolating what you do to say that therefore everyone else is doing the same, which might or might not be true.

 

There are lots of boaters out there who adopted composting toilets to save money and because it was convenient, and who have no way of disposing of the waste other than bag'n'binning, as seen in many blogs. I'll believe that they've all changed like you when there's evidence of this, for example comprehensive updated survey results.

 

If you want to stop being "slagged off", then show that composters behaviour -- all of them -- has genuinely changed, and everyone -- me included -- will be happy that the problem is solved 🙂

 

Over to you... 😉

 

Who exactly appointed you as the arbitrator of a decion as to if the problem has been solved?

 

I dont think we got the memo.

 

I would have thought that was down to CRT and its new waste collection co.

Edited by The Happy Nomad
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20 hours ago, IanD said:

[snip]

 

There are lots of boaters out there who adopted composting toilets to save money and because it was convenient, and who have no way of disposing of the waste other than bag'n'binning, as seen in many blogs. I'll believe that they've all changed like you when there's evidence of this, for example comprehensive updated survey results.

 

If you want to stop being "slagged off", then show that composters behaviour -- all of them -- has genuinely changed, and everyone -- me included -- will be happy that the problem is solved 🙂

 

Over to you... 😉

 

Before you suggest it, repeating the same survey again won't prove this either...

 

When the first survey was done CART were allowing bag'n'binning, so boaters were happy to openly admit that they did it -- and 70% did just that. No reason to disbelieve the result, no skin off anyone's nose either way.

 

Now CART have said this has to stop, and some people (including you) have changed their habits because of this (well done, so it's worked then) -- also possibly because it turned out that a big majority of boaters thought this practice should stop, which the poll on here clearly showed (instead of what some composters were saying, that most boaters wouldn't care).

 

So anyone who says in a second survey that they aren't going to stop bag'n'binning (especially after December) risks attracting the opprobrium of many anti-bagging boaters (and presumably CART if they find out), which must mean they're less likely to admit this -- in other words, not answer the poll truthfully, or just refuse to take part (self-selection) if they don't want to either lie or risk dobbing themselves in.

 

Even if they do answer there's no way of finding out if they're being truthful or not -- this is a well-known polling problem where the consequences of answering one way or the other are different or the participants are self-selecting, the poll becomes biased and the results can't be trusted.

 

So how can composting boaters convince everyone else (and CART) that bag'n'binning has effectively stopped, or will do so after December?

 

Over to you... 😉

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44 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

Before you suggest it, repeating the same survey again won't prove this either...

 

When the first survey was done CART were allowing bag'n'binning, so boaters were happy to openly admit that they did it -- and 70% did just that. No reason to disbelieve the result, no skin off anyone's nose either way.

 

Now CART have said this has to stop, and some people (including you) have changed their habits because of this (well done, so it's worked then) -- also possibly because it turned out that a big majority of boaters thought this practice should stop, which the poll on here clearly showed (instead of what some composters were saying, that most boaters wouldn't care).

 

So anyone who says in a second survey that they aren't going to stop bag'n'binning (especially after December) risks attracting the opprobrium of many anti-bagging boaters (and presumably CART if they find out), which must mean they're less likely to admit this -- in other words, not answer the poll truthfully, or just refuse to take part (self-selection) if they don't want to either lie or risk dobbing themselves in.

 

Even if they do answer there's no way of finding out if they're being truthful or not -- this is a well-known polling problem where the consequences of answering one way or the other are different or the participants are self-selecting, the poll becomes biased and the results can't be trusted.

 

So how can composting boaters convince everyone else (and CART) that bag'n'binning has effectively stopped, or will do so after December?

 

Over to you... 😉

Are you saying that apart from a small minority of people who are sensitive to environmental matters, the ban is unlikely to be effective or enforceable?

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4 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

Are you saying that apart from a small minority of people who are sensitive to environmental matters, the ban is unlikely to be effective or enforceable?

 

 

Even after C&RTs announcent a very knowledgable and emminent forum member still said he would be (probably) bagging and binning whilst out cruising but would use the marina compost heap when in the home marina.

To support his claim that it was lawful he posted parts of the relevant act, which unfortunately showed that it was indeed unlawful to put more than 7kgs of 'Municipal offensive waste' (which includes human faeces) in the general waste bins.

 

 

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.

 

 

Irrespective of the legal aspects, if, in a commercial contract, Biffa say no 'offensive waste in our bins' they are entitled to do so.

 

 

 

I think in the end he decided to leave the forum because of the ear-ache he got about it.

 

 

 

Screenshot (209).png

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