Do you ever throw anything in the cut ?

[MHS]

Most of the assorted chocolate brands seem to have switched to plastic these days. Quite disappointing as the free tins were very useful.

Have a look at the biscuits bought for you as Xmas pressies, many of them come in tins.

[Peter X]

Wouldn't the average muddy patch on a towpath benefit from having ash spread out on it?

 

Alternatively, is there scope for marinas and/or CRT to use it as an ingredient for a proper cheap paving material for paths? If they can, and bins for boaters to put their ash into were provided, I'm sure that most would be happy to use them, keeping much of the fire ash out of the cut.

 

According to this an ash and cement mix (known as ashcrete) makes a "fill material suitable for non-load-bearing applications":

http://www.pavingexpert.com/aggs01.html#ash

 

As to small metal items, at home I produce a steady trickle of these, mostly dug up in my garden or from my carpentry efforts, and I just chuck them in a bucket on my patio and take it to the dump for recycling when it gets full. On a boat space is at more of a premium, so unless you're on a marina which has a metal recycling bin I guess it should go in a rubbish bag.

[cariad]

Only shopping trollies - I thought it was a tradition. I'll happily stop if it's not, cos it's costing a quid a chuck!

 

(Disclaimer: The above is a joke: I am not partaking in,and neither do I advocate, the introduction of shopping trollies into the canal. Also, no shopping trollies were injured in the making of this post).

Do not try this at home it can be dangerous.

[Delta9]

Have a look at the biscuits bought for you as Xmas pressies, many of them come in tins.

Nobody bought me biscuits I went to buy some Quality Street, mainly for the free tin, but found that they were in a plastic container as were the Celebrations.

[cariad]

 

I used to do this because it was so satisfactory but now I simply return the trolley to the parking area, extract my £ coin then I walk to the side of the cut and throw it, really hard.

YES !! it bounces across the water sometimes, oh so satisfactory

Did you fill it with ashes first.

[Quinafloat]

My post was certainly not a joke post. I think that the detractors are missing a few salient points. Compared to the surface area of the canal bottom such objects are minute. They will almost certainly sink into the mud and not be uncovered for many years and only by a dredger by which time they will certainly not be sharp.

 

As to the possibility of them ending up round a prop, well having had many years of prop cleaning, the chance of a fishing line with a hook is a more realistic probability. The chance of a single blade being picked up and embedded round a prop, with or without anything else, is frankly laughable.

 

To those who think the dangers are so immense, I suggest a little realistic analysis would be a great thing. Disposal on land of such objects is potentially far more dangerous to people.

[Captain Zim]

I reckon the people who work with rubbish every day are well aware of the dangers that the rubbish might pose and might even be a bit offended at the suggestion that they are too stupid to consider that someone may have thrown a used Stanley blade away. They are pros. It's a nice thought to consider their safety but I think they've got it covered.

[aread2]

Wouldn't the average muddy patch on a towpath benefit from having ash spread out on it?

 

Alternatively, is there scope for marinas and/or CRT to use it as an ingredient for a proper cheap paving material for paths? If they can, and bins for boaters to put their ash into were provided, I'm sure that most would be happy to use them, keeping much of the fire ash out of the cut.

 

According to this an ash and cement mix (known as ashcrete) makes a "fill material suitable for non-load-bearing applications":

http://www.pavingexpert.com/aggs01.html#ash

 

As to small metal items, at home I produce a steady trickle of these, mostly dug up in my garden or from my carpentry efforts, and I just chuck them in a bucket on my patio and take it to the dump for recycling when it gets full. On a boat space is at more of a premium, so unless you're on a marina which has a metal recycling bin I guess it should go in a rubbish bag.

Breeze is a synonym for ash. In the US breeze blocks are called cinder blocks.

[patty-ann]

With regards sharp objects I ask at the tip what to do with knives etc and they said to put them into metal recycling but having read through the thread i thought the idea of putting them in beer cans good, but maybe summit bit bigger and sealable...metal best..those half sized biscuit tins good. then the whole lot could go into recycling.

As to chucking glass, scalpels etc into the cut thats crazy, we should be caring for our environment not turning yet another part of nature into a waste fill site.

Dregs of tea/coffee go in and food that quacky ducks like.

Apart from that rubbish recycled, ash I was told to fill up muddy puddles on towpath...?right...?wrong

I use hot ash at house on slippery muddy path in garden.

Edited January 3, 2015 by patty-ann

[Alf Roberts]

Give it a rest for gods sake !!!

I take it you disagree with me?

 

or perhaps you would rather I didn't express an opinion?

 

either way, I fail to see how you've added to the discussion.

 

I haven't much experience of evoking fictitious beings but I'm told they rarely intervene in matters of this kind. I'm not sure, if there was a god, whether she would worry whether the the canal was full of water or ash or cabbage. perhaps your prayers produce a different result? if so perhaps tell CRT as dredging is one of the lost arts to them.

[Athy]

 

As to chucking glass, scalpels etc into the cut thats crazy,

I've read both points of view, both of which have some merit, and tend to agree with yours.

 

If you see fishermen pulling fish out of the canal ready-filleted, you'll know that Quin has been mooring nearby!

 

I am not sure about putting old Stanley blades & c. into empty beer cans. It sound sensible, but one item is steel, the other is aluminium, and I am sure that they should be recycled separately.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Athy

[Peter X]

Thinking about the mathematics of ash disposal, I agree with Alf Roberts that it wouldn't be a significant problem at all, at least from the point of view of volume of material. Imagine if you will the worst case scenario, a stretch of towpath where there is a continuous line of liveaboard boats, each putting 150kg of ash into the cut over the winter. I am of course assuming they are on residential moorings, or moving about in accordance with the relevant legislation in which case the vacated spot is quickly being occupied by another such liveaboard.

 

In this boating nirvana, there might be one boat per 25m of towpath allowing a bit of room for mooring lines, and let's say the cut is 8m wide so that's 200 sq m of canal bed, and it will accumulate 0.75kg of ash per square metre per year. I reckon ash is a little denser than water, so we're looking at about half a litre of ash on that square metre, i.e. a layer of 0.5mm thickness per year. It would take a century to reduce the canal depth by 50mm (two inches). Game set and match to Alf on this point.

[Peter X]

Plastic biscuit boxes (can't call them tins really, but then do the metal ones actually contain tin nowadays?) have their uses too, because they don't rust. They're good for storing a home-made cake, as long as the cake isn't too tall to fit. Unfortunately the box I have is not quite wide enough to take a whole cake from my circular spring-form tin, so I have to slice it up and eat some first. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

[wreckferret]

We try to avoid throwing owt int'cut apart from grey water and stuff ducks will eat but i confesss to chucking a rather nice "snap on" torch into the depths (i use that term loosely as it was on the Chesterfield) when it wouldn't work when i needed to delve into the engine ole cos said engine had cut out without being told to.......

We don't have the ash problem coz we is posh wiv a oil burner innit

[magnetman]

I've read both points of view, both of which have some merit, and tend to agree with yours.

 

If you see fishermen pulling fish out of the canal ready-filleted, you'll know that Quin has been mooring nearby!

 

I am not sure about putting old Stanley blades & c. into empty beer cans. It sound sensible, but one item is steel, the other is aluminium, and I am sure that they should be recycled separately.

 

Yes I should have said steel beer cans some are steel some are aluminium

 

either way its out of harms way and thats what the point was about, not really about the merits of recycling which is a whole nother topic

 

anyway, I often wonder what happens to small very sharp man made objects if a swan sticks its neck down into the canal bed - i believe they deliberately take in silt and small dirt particles for some reason or have i imagined that?

 

scalpel blade would be nasty, but why would people have scalpels on a canal boat I thought they were for doctors ?

From swan sanctuary:

 

Swans need to ingest grit and small stones which provide their gizzard with grinding stones to break up their food. To do this they sift mud and silt through their beaks, swallowing the grit.

 

so I suppose they would filter out larger objects like stanley knife blades... luckily

[Victor Vectis]

Teabags

Teabags are the handmaidens of Satan and the spawn of the devil.

 

Real boaters use tea leaves!

 

<cue old Marxist gag>

[Ray T]

Inadvertently dropped the dog in on one occasion.

[James Owen]

If it's in the Kampa it goes in the cut

[Quinafloat]

I'm a liveaboard so have no intention of polluting my canals and rivers. I take the point about professional garbage personnel knowing about sharps, however as I use CaRT rubbish disposal points the problem is the first 100 yards. Firstly I must ensure that my wife is safe carrying the rubbish in a polythene bag. Then I must ensure that the people picking over the rubbish (yes gentle people, they exist) before it is even collected are safe.

 

I don't drink beer or fizzy pop, so If I bought a can, I would have to empty it down the sink first just to be able to use it, and then dispose of a can and a single sharp, that would really be needless pollution.

 

As regards taking them to a proper rubbish disposal place, there are so few near canals I think that everyone can see that unless you own a car, which I do not, that it is pretty impractical. A great many now ban people who arrive on foot these days.

 

Plenty of people use scalpels for electronics, modelling and many other purposes including cutting polythene six pack holders off of ducks necks to prevent them from starving to death. It's just a small, sharp knife with replaceable blades. For those of us who make things rather than buy them they are invaluable for precision work.

 

There is also a sense of scale missing, I dispose of perhaps 3 blades a year. A bucket of ash is vast in comparison.

I suspect that a lot of the condemning responses are from people who live in houses and have cars and a boat or two just for fun. They are the real polluters.

[Southern Star]

Personally I don't put anything in the canal, as for rubbish disposal I find that by flattening empty beer cans and tin cans, and compacting other rubbish I can go for at least a week before filling up a bin liner with rubbish.

[Starcoaster]

I simply can't work that ash tippy thing MtB has, Lone Wolf and I made a hellova mess in the back cabin of Reg one day trying to suss it out!

All of my food waste goes in the cut, err, that's about it. I did used to tip my ash in the cut when my ash bucket was full before Maffi told me off for it, and in fact, shortly after he told me off I dropped the ash pan in the cut and had to pay £25 for a new one, so that was my lesson well learned!

[Bettie Boo]

Food waste from the kitchen sink

 

Grey water

 

And food waste that I think the local water fowl or fish may consume

 

2 lump hammers

 

2 chimney caps

 

Dave

 

1 chimney

 

1 box... the contents of which I am still trying to identify (lost overboard on moving in day) but do know of the following items...1 highly decorated solid silver antique candle stick, my Dad's funeral book, a Webster's leather bound dictionary that had been in my father's family since the late 1800's, two very old photo albums of my Dad's, and numerous pieces of silver plate

 

That's it for us

 

ETA - and two of my planters, one of which was retrived by the helmsman who steered the boat into over hanging branches in the first place, the other one sunk to the bottom and was gone forever

Edited January 3, 2015 by Bettie Boo

[Loafer]

I tip ash overboard if it's really shitty outside. If not, it gezunder the hedge from our Tippy, when cool.

 

When I see the shower of leaves and sticks falling in't cut on a windy autumn day, I stop worrying about ash. I have had abuse though, when spotted.

[churchward]

In terms of waste items I try and put nothing in the canal. We do of course feed the ducks etc. and other food scraps for the wildlife. Nothing else though. We put the fire ash in a "tippy" like the one posted above and when cool it goes in the hedgerow or waste areas.

 

Otherwise other things have been to date.

 

Me.

 

My glasses (I got in to get those back though)

 

Sunglasses.

 

Hat ( I retrieved that too)

 

Hammer.

 

Keys for the front hatch (retrieved those with a magnet)

 

A couple of side fenders dropped in.

 

Chimney cap.

 

Oh and me again!

[John V]

I get very stroppy with people in this area throwing anything sharp, broken glass etc overboard. We are on a drying creek with quite soft mud and it is quite common for people to be wading through it to get ashore. Usually when they have misjudged a tide. I have seen a horrid cut on someones leg from some broken glass that went through their waders.