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

[MtB]

I came up Hillmorton yesterday and there is a huge banner advert on the fence by the first pair of locks, promoting composting toilets.

[Clodi]

We compost our waste have done for the last 30+ years on our smallholdings, moorings & our cottage in the west of Ireland.Our boats have either sea-toilets (on EA waters& of course the sea). We successfully compost on our narrowboat along with many other boaters who do things correctly.

This current problem of binning the waste has arisen alongside the, (mainly London) problem, overcrowding on the towpath which leads to boaters being reluctant to move to seek pump-out which of course cost money & difficulty in finding another mooring spot.. Quite a few of these boats are rented and even sub-let and the 'landlords' promote the binning of the crap as an acceptable practice.

I see Wu Wu composting toilets recently put out a newsletter referring to a pilot composting waste collection service which may be the way forward in some areas.

One simple solution may be a charge for binning human waste around the same as the cost of a pump-out. It won't bother us who have been composting for years but it would put off the quick-fix brigade.

Rather than argue constantly from an uninformed point of view I would suggest people read the many interesting  posts on the Facebook group 'Compost Toilets for boats and off grid living '  read the book Humanmanure or visit the CAT in Wales. All of which greatly predate the current 'scandal of lazy sods chucking their shit into the bins.

[peterboat]

7 minutes ago, Clodi said:

We compost our waste have done for the last 30+ years on our smallholdings, moorings & our cottage in the west of Ireland.Our boats have either sea-toilets (on EA waters& of course the sea). We successfully compost on our narrowboat along with many other boaters who do things correctly.

This current problem of binning the waste has arisen alongside the, (mainly London) problem, overcrowding on the towpath which leads to boaters being reluctant to move to seek pump-out which of course cost money & difficulty in finding another mooring spot.. Quite a few of these boats are rented and even sub-let and the 'landlords' promote the binning of the crap as an acceptable practice.

I see Wu Wu composting toilets recently put out a newsletter referring to a pilot composting waste collection service which may be the way forward in some areas.

One simple solution may be a charge for binning human waste around the same as the cost of a pump-out. It won't bother us who have been composting for years but it would put off the quick-fix brigade.

Rather than argue constantly from an uninformed point of view I would suggest people read the many interesting  posts on the Facebook group 'Compost Toilets for boats and off grid living '  read the book Humanmanure or visit the CAT in Wales. All of which greatly predate the current 'scandal of lazy sods chucking their shit into the bins.

I just hope that the lazy soda don't spoil it for us

[tree monkey]

15 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I just hope that the lazy soda don't spoil it for us

Which is always the danger with a lot of things, even if there isn't an actual issue the perceived problem can be used a the final nail in the coffin.

Or to sum it up, it's the small minority of selfish idiots who feck it up for the rest

[Alan de Enfield]

19 minutes ago, Clodi said:

 

Rather than argue constantly from an uninformed point of view I would suggest people read the many interesting  posts on the Facebook group 'Compost Toilets for boats and off grid living '  read the book Humanmanure or visit the CAT in Wales. All of which greatly predate the current 'scandal of lazy sods chucking their shit into the bins.

 

 

11 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I just hope that the lazy soda don't spoil it for us

 

 

I do not think anyone of the forum has suggested that composting toilets is a bad idea, in fact it is an environmentally GOOD IDEA, when done properly and in accordance with the instructions and methods outlined  in the documents you mention.

 

The problem seems to be very much originating from the 21st C  ethos of "I do what I want, I get what I want, and if it makes my life easier I do it, stuff the rest of you" there is absolutely no moral sense of right or wrong and as you say selfishness is rife.

Society must be at it lowest point for generations.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, Clodi said:

We compost our waste have done for the last 30+ years on our smallholdings, moorings & our cottage in the west of Ireland.Our boats have either sea-toilets (on EA waters& of course the sea). We successfully compost on our narrowboat along with many other boaters who do things correctly.

This current problem of binning the waste has arisen alongside the, (mainly London) problem, overcrowding on the towpath which leads to boaters being reluctant to move to seek pump-out which of course cost money & difficulty in finding another mooring spot.. Quite a few of these boats are rented and even sub-let and the 'landlords' promote the binning of the crap as an acceptable practice.

I see Wu Wu composting toilets recently put out a newsletter referring to a pilot composting waste collection service which may be the way forward in some areas.

One simple solution may be a charge for binning human waste around the same as the cost of a pump-out. It won't bother us who have been composting for years but it would put off the quick-fix brigade.

Rather than argue constantly from an uninformed point of view I would suggest people read the many interesting  posts on the Facebook group 'Compost Toilets for boats and off grid living '  read the book Humanmanure or visit the CAT in Wales. All of which greatly predate the current 'scandal of lazy sods chucking their shit into the bins.

As Alan said, used properly a composting toilet is a great eco-friendly solution.

 

But the bit you highlighted is wrong, like Peter you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that because you and some mates do it properly so do most other boaters. IIRC the Facebook composting toilet survey (yes I read it, and other posts on the subject) showed that only about 30% of owners do this, which inevitably means the other 70% don't -- so "many" should read "a minority of"... 😞

 

Charging for waste disposal would in theory fix the problem; the difficulty is that to work (and stop bag'n'binning) this needs an extensive network of collection points, and this would cost a lot of money given that there are estimated to be around 700 bag'n'binners on CART waters (along with about 300 "proper composters" like you and Peter) -- the cost per dump is likely to be considerably higher than pumpouts, the cost of which is borne by maybe 10000 boats including the hire fleets (my estimate -- does anyone have better figures?). Don't forget that the waste then has to be processed, either by turning it into compost (labour-intensive, likely to cost more than animal-sourced compost, who will buy it?) or treated as hazardous waste like Biffa would have to do (expensive).

 

Coupled with the oft-expressed "freetard" mentality which seems to be prevalent among bag'n'binners ("why should I pay when I can chuck it for free?"), I think the odds of most of them paying maybe £15-£30 a go is close to zero -- they'll just carry on chucking it when nobody is looking.

 

You're absolutely correct about the "current scandal", but providing chargeable waste disposal won't fix it 😞

2 hours ago, tree monkey said:

Which is always the danger with a lot of things, even if there isn't an actual issue the perceived problem can be used a the final nail in the coffin.

Or to sum it up, it's the small minority of selfish idiots who feck it up for the rest

They might be a small minority of all boaters, but unfortunately they're a large majority of composting toilet owning boaters...

Edited August 9, 2021 by IanD

[Hudds Lad]

17 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

…Tiger Woods drives his BMW into a petrol station…

 

Do you mean literally? He’s got form for bad driving  

[Mike Todd]

On 08/08/2021 at 09:01, Arthur Marshall said:

The real problem of chucking not fully composted human faeces into a bin arises with the poor sod who sorts the bin contents, and opens the bag.

Weirdly, this is a person much like the one who produced the product in the first place and thought it best to avoid any contact with it. Just occasionally, one has to think of other people, although, judging by the amount of dog excrement both on the towpath and hanging in bags off the trees, this does seem to be a vanishing concept.

Moored yesterday at Pyrford, c;lose to a clearly marked Boaters Refuse Only bin enclosure. Couple walk past with dog. Woman carrying bag of dog poo. Enters bin compound and exits minus bag. Either the bag went in one of the bins or on the floor. In either case it was not permitted. 

 

Not only boaters that create problems!

[Arthur Marshall]

3 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Moored yesterday at Pyrford, c;lose to a clearly marked Boaters Refuse Only bin enclosure. Couple walk past with dog. Woman carrying bag of dog poo. Enters bin compound and exits minus bag. Either the bag went in one of the bins or on the floor. In either case it was not permitted. 

 

Not only boaters that create problems!

Dog people generally (and genuinely) believe problems with dogs are only ever caused by other dog owners. The majority of them are incorrect.

[PD1964]

1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

Moored yesterday at Pyrford, c;lose to a clearly marked Boaters Refuse Only bin enclosure. Couple walk past with dog. Woman carrying bag of dog poo. Enters bin compound and exits minus bag. Either the bag went in one of the bins or on the floor. In either case it was not permitted. 

 

Not only boaters that create problems!

 She probably never even thought she was in the wrong.

 Was there a dedicated dog waste bin nearby? I see more litter bins that have “litter and dog waste” on them, so she might of thought it acceptable if no sign saying different or no dedicated dog waste bin nearby.
 CaRT are encouraging more people to use the canals and BW keys are readily available, unfortunately there seams little interest in increasing facilities to cope with their “Life’s better BY the water” motto, maybe a few dedicated dog waste bins along the Towpath, but they would probably be rarely emptied/collected or one dedicated composting/dog waste bin by the general waste bins that was for all S#i[.

 
  

 

  

 

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by PD1964

[Mike Todd]

31 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

 She probably never even thought she was in the wrong.

 Was there a dedicated dog waste bin nearby? I see more litter bins that have “litter and dog waste” on them, so she might of thought it acceptable if no sign saying different or no dedicated dog waste bin nearby.
 CaRT are encouraging more people to use the canals and BW keys are readily available, unfortunately there seams little interest in increasing facilities to cope with their “Life’s better BY the water” motto, maybe a few dedicated dog waste bins along the Towpath, but they would probably be rarely emptied/collected or one dedicated composting/dog waste bin by the general waste bins that was for all S#i[.

 
  

 

  

 

 

Not CaRT this time (sorry to disappoint those  for whom this is  a necessity when making adverse observations!) but National Trust - Wey Navigations!

 

And yes it was clearly marked, as adjacent to a pub I guess the NT were keen for the pub customers not to treat it as theirs.

 

And another sad note: the pub had been trading happily on Saturday evening when we arrived but on Sunday it was completely closed. It seems that the dread COVID Track and Trace app had pinged their last available chef.

[Cheshire cat]

According to Narrowboatworld a new contractor has been appointed by C&RT to deal with general waste and hazardous waste.

 

Perhaps it is the way forward

[PD1964]

13 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Not CaRT this time (sorry to disappoint those  for whom this is  a necessity when making adverse observations!) but National Trust - Wey Navigations!

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?

Edited August 9, 2021 by PD1964

[frangar]

10 hours ago, MtB said:

I came up Hillmorton yesterday and there is a huge banner advert on the fence by the first pair of locks, promoting composting toilets.

Are you sure it wasn’t the food from the cafe there….😜

[IanD]

18 minutes ago, Cheshire cat said:

According to Narrowboatworld a new contractor has been appointed by C&RT to deal with general waste and hazardous waste.

 

Perhaps it is the way forward

I'm sure they'll have to follow exactly the same regulations about waste that Biffa did, since these are legal not their choice, so the new CART policy on bag'n'binning is unlikely to change.

 

But hopefully they'll do a better job than Biffa did of actually emptying the bins and keeping the waste disposal areas in order. They could hardly do much worse...

[David Mack]

44 minutes ago, 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.

He did say he was at Pyrford, so it rather follows that boaters bins would be provided by NT rather than CRT.

[matty40s]

11 hours ago, MtB said:

I came up Hillmorton yesterday and there is a huge banner advert on the fence by the first pair of locks, promoting composting toilets.

Is this right next to the 6 weeks Out of Order Elsan??

[PD1964]

24 minutes ago, David Mack said:

He did say he was at Pyrford, so it rather follows that boaters bins would be provided by NT rather than CRT.

Sorry I don’t know who controls that waterway and the thread is about CaRT bins. So maybe you can answer, are boaters allowed to put Composting waste in NT bins?

Edited August 9, 2021 by PD1964

[David Mack]

9 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

So maybe you can answer, are boaters allowed to put Composting waste in NT bins?

No idea, since it is some years since I boated on the Wey, and I didn't need to dispose of composting toilet waste, so the question didn't arise anyway.

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

 

 

But hopefully they'll do a better job than Biffa did of actually emptying the bins and keeping the waste disposal areas in order. They could hardly do much worse...

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

Edited August 9, 2021 by ditchcrawler

[Alway Swilby]

1 hour ago, PD1964 said:

Sorry I don’t know who controls that waterway and the thread is about CaRT bins. So maybe you can answer, are boaters allowed to put Composting waste in NT bins?

What about the EA bins on the Thames, Nene and Gt Ouse?

[PD1964]

13 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

What about the EA bins on the Thames, Nene and Gt Ouse?

Since some presume everyone knows which waterways/bins are the responsibility of the NT and CaRT, does anyone know the NT policy on composting waste deposited in their bins, will they follow the same policy as CaRT? Looking at those locations I suspect they will have a good chance of having compost toilet users.

[Alan de Enfield]

21 minutes 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 fully appreciate that C&RT may have had a bespoke contract with BIffa, but as I said earlier in the thread, our contract with Biffa, on 'standard terms' is that they will only "lift" (as they call a collection) what is inside the bin and the bin lid should be able to be fully closed.

I have often had to climb into our bins to jump on the contents to squash them down - even then the lid occasionally doesn't close all the way, but our collection guy is very good.

 

The only time they would take 'extra' bags was if collection day fell on a bankholiday, we could then have the 'extra days' bags thrown in the truck.

[David Mack]

3 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

Since some presume everyone knows which waterways/bins are the responsibility of the NT and CaRT, does anyone know the NT policy on composting waste deposited in their bins, will they follow the same policy as CaRT? Looking at those locations I suspect they will have a good chance of having compost toilet users.

Since NT doesn't allow liveaboards or continuous cruisers (other than as short stay visitors) I suspect they see a lower proportion of compost toilet users than CRT do.

[matty40s]

25 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

What about the EA bins on the Thames, Nene and Gt Ouse?

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.