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

[IanD]

18 minutes ago, Midnight said:

This thread is now disintegrating into a bat and ball fight. Nothing new is being added. This exert from NBW presumably a C&RT press release re the new contractor suggests there may be a solution to satisfy all. (Well maybe not all on here).
 

"It has now awarded Reconomy the waterways contract for not only collection of general waste but also to manage the collection, processing, and disposal of hazardous waste materials across the waterways, Alan Tilbury reports.

Introduce a range

Under the contract terms Reconomy tells it will introduce a range of waste management services and systems to safeguard against the impact of hazardous waste, improving the experiences of all those using Britain’s waterways."

 

Hopefully this includes poo bags, oil, batteries, fridges and nuclear waste.

 

In the meanwhile live and let live

Hopefully the extra cost of hazardous waste disposal will be paid for by -- well, who exactly?

 

The rules about waste disposal apply to all companies, Biffa and Reconomy, they're not free to choose what they do with it. If it's not classed as "general waste" -- for example, if it contains uncomposted human or nuclear waste -- then it costs considerably more to dispose of, and this has to be paid for. No amount of waving a magic green wand over it will change this fact. Or if Reconomy do somehow manage to put a network-wide composter collection network in place then it will cost a lot of money -- and who will pay for this?

 

All the poor bloody canal boaters, that's who. At least, that's what the composters hope... 😞

 

Yes this has all been said before, and it will all be said again so long as the composters or their allies posting on here keep trying to make it "somebody else's problem", not theirs.

 

And as long as they keep doing that, some of us will keep pointing out why it shouldn't happen.

Edited August 13, 2021 by IanD

[Bargebuilder]

8 hours ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

The thing that really amuses me about this thread is the fact that the most vociferous opponents of composting bogs have no real skin in the game.

 

@Alan de Enfield has by his own admission left the canals and is now somewhere else (i cant be bothered to check where).

 

And..

 

@IanD is a hire boater like me, and will rarely encounter the issue, if ever.

 

Its a bit sad lads, time for another hobby perhaps?

 

Like stamp or coin collecting.

He'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that Alan is tidal and empties his toilet tank directly into the sea; quite legally of course, but then it is 'legal' in several of our rivers such as the Nene.

 

 

[Midnight]

19 minutes ago, IanD said:

............

Yes this has all been said before, and it will all be said again so long as the composters or their allies posting on here keep trying to make it "somebody else's problem", not theirs.

 

And as long as they keep doing that, some of us will keep pointing out why it shouldn't happen.

Lord have mercy!
PS no I don't have a compost bog 

[Jerra]

44 minutes ago, Ange said:

It's rather sad and childish behaviour for a man of his age isn't it.

Not knowing the age of the poster I can't comment on whether the behaviour is suitable for the age group.   However going back to look for posts you have clearly read before and not reacted to is more than a little strange.

[IanD]

39 minutes ago, Midnight said:

Lord have mercy!
PS no I don't have a compost bog 

It's why we're now on page 56... 😉

[Ronaldo47]

11 hours ago, David Mack said:

 

Actually in most cases it is CRT's responsibility to clear it up. If waste is fly tipped (which is what littering/dumping amounts to), then it is the land owner's responsibility to clear up the mess. And in most cases boaters dumping their rubbish would be doing so on CRT's land.

Which is why CRT won't withdraw most refuse facilities. They face the costs either way, and it is generally cheaper to deal with it when the stuff is mostly dumped at specific locations, rather than scattered across the whole CRT network.

It's like the present situation with Civic Amenity Sites  run by my local  County Council. Since restricting the types and quantities of rubbish they accept, and introducing charges for some types to save themselves money, there has been an increase of fly tipping in the carriageways of country lanes. The cost of clearing this up falls on the local council, not the County Council. So for the County Council it is a win-win situation as they have cut their own costs, but at an environmental cost and a financial cost to the local council. It really annoys members of our local council but there is little they can do about it.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Ronaldo47
typos

[IanD]

46 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

It's like the present situation with Civic Amenity Sites  run by my local  County Council. Since restricting the types and quantities of rubbish they accept, and introducing charges for some types to save themselves money, there has been an increase of fly tipping in the carriageways of country lanes. The cost of clearing this up falls on the local council, not the County Council. So for the County Council it is a win-win situation as they have cut their own costs, but at an environmental cost and a financial cost to the local council. It really annoys members of our local council but there is little they can do about it.

 

That's a typical problem when different parts of an organisation have separate budgets and they only have to manage their own, regardless of the effect on anyone else. It even happens inside the same company when there's no overall authority/management to look at the big picture -- one department does something to save £x but increases the cost of another department by £2x. I've even seen it happen inside the same group with things like timescales, somebody makes a change that saves them a week but costs somebody else a month. It's all down to bad management, which there's a lot of out there... 😞

 

It shouldn't happen inside CART because they're eventually responsible for both waste collection and clearing up fly-tipping, and it should be clear to them that it's cheaper to collect waste from a small number of controlled sites than pick it up from being dumped all over the canal system. But if it ends up in two different departments or subcontracted and nobody higher up in CART has the sense to look at both...

Edited August 13, 2021 by IanD

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Jerra said:

Not knowing the age of the poster I can't comment on whether the behaviour is suitable for the age group.   However going back to look for posts you have clearly read before and not reacted to is more than a little strange.

 

They are not posts that I have read previously.

 

I normally skip over her ramblings but when she posts a reaction it does sometimes prompt me to have a look at her recent efforts and post a reaction accordingly. She also seems to post in the middle of the night which in itself is not an issue of course but it means I rarely see her posts as they are actually posted or shortly after in VNC.

 

HTH.

[Rob-M]

For the London boaters there is the trial collection service, https://www.circularrevolution.org/ but it costs so will be interesting to see how it goes. I don't think this could be a nationwide service though.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Rob-M
Fix URL

[Arthur Marshall]

There's no reason at all why it can't be a bss change to ban them  and I expect it will. Plenty of those in the past have resulted in boaters having to change stuff on their boats, or amend it in some way, at their own cost.

It's unfair on the very few who use them properly and it may be that an exemption could be claimed for those who can show proof that real composting is viable - obviously impossible without a permanent mooring and the relevant bins.

But expecting other people to deal (probably unexpectedly) with your personal excreta is, simply, indefensible and shows a fairly regrettable attitude to your fellow humans.

[Alan de Enfield]

34 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

For the London boaters there is the trial collection service, https://www.circularrevolution.org/, but it costs so will be interesting to see how it goes. I don't think this could be a nationwide service though.

 

 

 

Hmmmm .............

 

 

We couldn't find the page you were looking for. This is either because:

• There is an error in the URL entered into your web browser. Please check the URL and try again.
• The page you are looking for has been moved or deleted.

 

 

Edit :

 

Got there via another route

 

£50.00 for 12 collection over 3 months (fortnightly) or £25 a time 'ad-hoc' collections.

 

Thats not going to be popular with free-loading Constant moorers.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

There's no reason at all why it can't be a bss change to ban them 

 

I agree given the ethos of the BSS is to protect other people from dangers represented by one's boat.

 

Boats with separating bogs whose users dumps the sh1t in the public bins are most definitely a risk to the public, threatening the health and wellbeing of anyone else using or emptying the bins, or processing the bin waste.

 

We have separate dog poo bins so why should human poo be treated any differently? Maybe the dog poo bins should just be made bigger. That might work. 

[Rob-M]

21 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

 

Hmmmm .............

 

 

We couldn't find the page you were looking for. This is either because:

• There is an error in the URL entered into your web browser. Please check the URL and try again.
• The page you are looking for has been moved or deleted.

 

 

Edit :

 

Got there via another route

 

£50.00 for 12 collection over 3 months (fortnightly) or £25 a time 'ad-hoc' collections.

 

Thats not going to be popular with free-loading Constant moorers.

 

 

 

 

Fixed the link in my post now.

[Bargebuilder]

1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

There's no reason at all why it can't be a bss change to ban them  and I expect it will. Plenty of those in the past have resulted in boaters having to change stuff on their boats, or amend it in some way, at their own cost.

It's unfair on the very few who use them properly and it may be that an exemption could be claimed for those who can show proof that real composting is viable - obviously impossible without a permanent mooring and the relevant bins.

But expecting other people to deal (probably unexpectedly) with your personal excreta is, simply, indefensible and shows a fairly regrettable attitude to your fellow humans.

I can see no reason why it couldn't be a BSS change, but what happens once the inspector has disappeared from sight?

[haggis]

5 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

I can see no reason why it couldn't be a BSS change, but what happens once the inspector has disappeared from sight?

Possibly the same as gas lockers and borrowed fire extinguishers I expect. There will be those who "get round " the regulations but hopefully most will be law abiding.

 

Haggis

[Alan de Enfield]

7 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

I can see no reason why it couldn't be a BSS change, but what happens once the inspector has disappeared from sight?

 

Law breakers will always be law breakers, some folks are just bred that way.

 

Should we do nothing because someone will find a way around it ?

[Bargebuilder]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Law breakers will always be law breakers, some folks are just bred that way.

 

Should we do nothing because someone will find a way around it ?

Absolutely right, so the choice is between attempting a ban and collecting the waste.

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

Absolutely right, so the choice is between attempting a ban and collecting the waste.

Since you keep posting against a ban and for collection over and over again, I'll repeat my comment/questions from several pages back, which I note that you've carefully avoided answering...

 

Why should they [collect the waste], when it's far cheaper (where do you suggest the money would come from?) and easier to just ban composting toilets?

 

Do you by any chance have a composting toilet and no proper compost heaps?

 

Because it sounds awfully like what you really want -- but refuse to come out straight and say -- is for "somebody else" to pay to fix the problem the bag'n'binners have created...

Edited August 13, 2021 by IanD

[Alan de Enfield]

15 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

Absolutely right, so the choice is between attempting a ban and collecting the waste.

 

You are being very dismissive, could you just not say :

 

"...so the choice is between applying a ban and collecting the waste".

 

Your choice of words shows which side of the fence you are on.

 

 

C&RT could (as has been said) easily apply the ban - and, given the new sections in the T&Cs, could relatively easily check, and enforce, continued compliance, ie not replacing the bucket when the examination is over.

 

As a composter you should be lobbying the likes of the collection company shown earlier to expand their collection range or offer Franchises in other areas, not expecting C&RT to increase spending to suit your toilet choices - they don't give 'pump-outs' free black-waste disposal do they ?

[Bargebuilder]

7 minutes ago, IanD said:

Since you keep posting against a ban and for collection over and over again, I'll repeat my comment/questions from several pages back, which I note that you've carefully avoided answering...

 

Why should they [collect the waste], when it's far cheaper (where do you suggest the money would come from?) and easier to just ban composting toilets?

 

Do you by any chance have a composting toilet and no proper compost heaps?

 

Because it sounds awfully like what you really want -- but refuse to come out straight and say -- is for "somebody else" to pay to fix the problem the bag'n'binners have created...

Thanks for your interest, although your assertions are without foundation.

 

Before we sold it a year or so ago, we lived on a replica Dutch barge which I fitted out myself. I installed a Tecma Silence macerator toilet and an 800 litre black tank and we did as Alan D E does, pumped out its contents directly into the sea because pump out facilities were unavailable on the East coast where we moored. This process, although unavoidable, revolted us, the smell, the brown slick; horrible! Although we went off shore, it didn't make us feel any better about it.

 

A friend and fellow live-aboard meanwhile, having got fed up with blockages, smells and expensive repairs, made and started using a composting toilet. All the local live-aboards were sceptical to say the least, but after 6 months or so each of us was invited over to his barge for a look and a sniff and his experiment yielded truly remarkable results.

 

There was indeed no smell, he and his wife struggled to fill his 20 litre bucket, even after 10 weeks, because the combination of drying out and decomposition reduced the volume in the bucket almost all as quickly as he and his wife added to it. 

 

My pump out system had cost thousands to install, was troublesome, smelly and bad for the environment, so when it needed a new pump, I converted to composting as a more environmentally sensitive alternative.

 

I was lucky enough to have somewhere to finish the composting, but even sending a near odourless, dessicated mixture of human waste and sawdust to landfill might be seen as preferable to dumping large quantities of human slurry into the sea.

 

I've sold the boat now and anyway we kept it on a salt marsh, so I have no axe to grind, but unlike some, having successfully composted first hand, I can talk about its advantages and drawbacks without speculation and guess work.

 

I am a supporter of composting in as much as it is much nicer to deal with than either a pump-out or cassette and I can see why it's popularity has increased amongst narrowboaters of which I am not one. 

 

My concerns are actually similar to yours about pollution, fly tipping etc but as the benefits of composting spread between boaters and the popularity of separating loos increases, it is possible that banning won't work well enough and providing composting bins might be the wise alternative.

 

Having been a sceptic myself, given the correct facility for collection, I wouldn't be surprised if composting loos eventually formed the majority.

[IanD]

26 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

[snip] OK, all clear now 😉

 

My concerns are actually similar to yours about pollution, fly tipping etc but as the benefits of composting spread between boaters and the popularity of separating loos increases, it is possible that banning won't work well enough and providing composting bins might be the wise alternative.

 

Having been a sceptic myself, given the correct facility for collection, I wouldn't be surprised if composting loos eventually formed the majority.

But there's the rub, as I said ages ago -- to allow lots of composting loos a systemwide collection network is essential, but until the majority of loos have switched it doesn't make commercial sense to build the network, the cost per user would be far too high to be viable -- always assuming they're willing to pay, which I bet many aren't.

 

We've already got two waste collection networks that cover the canals (Elsan and pumpout), each with (my guess) more than 10000 users including hire boats. Installing a third one won't enable either of the other two to be dispensed with, so the cost must go up, and it has to be paid for.

 

It would be great to jump forward to a sunlit uplands future where composting toilets (used properly, to make compost!) are the normal and accepted canal toilet solution and most boaters use them, it's more eco-friendly than what we have now, no more bloo and similar, lower water use.

 

The problem is that nobody has come up with a (realistic, costed) way to get there from where we are now without either a magic money tree or composting users being willing to pay higher fees than pumpouts, neither of which is going to happen.

Edited August 13, 2021 by IanD

[Bargebuilder]

 

1 hour ago, IanD said:

"it doesn't make commercial sense to build the network, the cost per user would be far too high to be viable"

 

"it's more eco-friendly than what we have now, no more bloo and similar, lower water use."

 

"The problem is that nobody has come up with a (realistic, costed) way to get there"

Having done a bit of detective work and with help from Alan D E, the disposal of toilet compost may not be the huge expense that we imagine. Indeed, compared to the multiple thousands that we spend on moorings, licences, fuel and running costs, any addition to the licence fee could only be described as trivial.

 

It might be argued that the tiny cost to each of us was worth it to have a clean, healthy environment and the option of a superior and more eco friendly form of toilet on our craft.

 

Forgive me if you've read this elsewhere, but:

 

The CRT have 220 sanitary stations, which are stations that have either Elsan or pump-outs or both.

 

If at every station a dedicated 'compost' bin was provided there would unsurprisingly be 220 of them. If each of them were to be emptied weekly then that would be 11440 emptyings per year. If Alan's figure for emptying is correct at £23 plus vat, then the cost to CRT would be £263,120 plus vat. 

 

Now, the CRT advertise that they have 35,000 boat licence holders and state that this number is increasing every year, meaning that the princely sum of about £7.50 per year per licence holder would cover the cost. A tiny percentage increase on the licence fee that most of us pay.

 

As Alan mentions, the CRT should be able to negotiate a decent discount on the above figures, as the quoted figure was for a relatively small organisation compared to the C&RT.

[Alan de Enfield]

58 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

f at every station a dedicated 'compost' bin was provided there would unsurprisingly be 220 of them. If each of them were to be emptied weekly then that would be 11440 emptyings per year. If Alan's figure for emptying is correct at £23 plus vat, then the cost to CRT would be £263,120 plus vat. 

 

Now, the CRT advertise that they have 35,000 boat licence holders and state that this number is increasing every year, meaning that the princely sum of about £7.50 per year per licence holder would cover the cost. A tiny percentage increase on the licence fee that most of us pay.

 

 

Is there any specific reason why every boater should pay for 1000 (?) boaters to have their toilets emptied ?

All boaters do not contribute to the costs of pump-outs. Those that use - pay.

 

Maybe the 1000 (?) composting boaters should pay £263 each per annum, which, if you are correct, would be hugely reducing in the future, as 10's of thousands convert to composting.

[haggis]

Just been reading the latest Boaters Update and it says that C&RT has recently signed a new contract with Biffa. I thought they had moved to another company to uplift rubbish.

[Alan de Enfield]

Just now, haggis said:

Just been reading the latest Boaters Update and it says that C&RT has recently signed a new contract with Biffa. I thought they had moved to another company to uplift rubbish.

 

It was announced on NBW, read into that what you wish.

 

Either the editor of Boaters Updates doesn't know what is going on, or, NBW don't know what i going on

 

THE Canal & River Trust has dumped the rubbish collection company Biffa.

It has now awarded Reconomy the waterways contract for not only collection of general waste but also to manage the collection, processing, and disposal of hazardous waste materials across the waterways, Alan Tilbury reports.

Introduce a range

Under the contract terms Reconomy tells it will introduce a range of waste management services and systems to safeguard against the impact of hazardous waste, improving the experiences of all those using Britain’s waterways.

The company will take over the sites previously operated by Biffa, that caused a great many complaints over its management of the rubbish sites, with them often overflowing with rubbish and rubbish even left after collection.

Would not take our rubbish

The above photograph shows the Biffa site at the junction of the Shropshire Union with the Staffs & Worcs, when we were taking the dog for a walk in the neighbouring woods, but realised there was no way it would take our rubbish.

Mooring overnight we saw the Biffa lorry arrive to empty the bins, and so we took the opportunity to empty our rubbish but were amazed to see the state of the disposal site, as shown in this second photograph. 

Many boaters have complained of the overflowing rubbish at that company's sites, so it is hoped things will now improve.

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