Rubbish

[Jen-in-Wellies]

8 minutes ago, Mac of Cygnet said:

I've always just chucked my teabags in the cut, thinking them easily biodegradable, but I recently learned that they contain some plastic, presumably to give them wet strength.

Tea and canals have a long and interTwinning history. As the Midlands canals were built to move coal and pottery around, so the canals in Yorkshire were built to move tea leaves from the great Yorkshire plantations to the teabag factories and then the finished product on to their markets. Unfortunately, the tea plantations have long gone and Yorkshire tea actually now comes from cheaper sources in India and Sri Lanka.

 

Jen ?

[Mac of Cygnet]

7 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

Hmmm. Perhaps the effect on canal depth is negligible (even if we all did this) but I always feel I should avoid throwing anything into the cut. The damn things are shallow enough as it is.

 

But what about all the leaves and dead fish and ducksh*t and stuff?  Stove ash isn't biodegradable, and I certainly don't chuck that in, although some people do.

[DandV]

11 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

There is nowt wrong burning polyethylene or polyprop. Both burn very clean with no nasties.....well maybe the odd little bit but nothing as bad as Supertherm. However.....burning PVC or PET ( don't burn your pets unless they are ducks) is not recommended. PVC burns to coke and HCL which is not nice. In fact it is quite bad. I would say incredibly bad but someone would comment. Not a clue what PET goes to but likely bad. Polystyrene or HIPS have benzene rings in them so again it will give off toxic stuff. 70% of waste plastic is PE/PE which is ok. If you are burning PE or PP, keep the temp up and it won't flow down and clog the grate up.

Be careful , The temperatures at the grate and the ash pan  are quite low, So certainly burning pvc results in some hydrochloric acid production which ain't great in contact with iron, and the environment in general. Specialised incinerators burn hot and also scrub the exhaust stream to remove the considerable nasties. Well beyond the ability of the nut gathering red or grey rodent stove.

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Tea and canals have a long and interTwinning history. As the Midlands canals were built to move coal and pottery around, so the canals in Yorkshire were built to move tea leaves from the great Yorkshire plantations to the teabag factories and then the finished product on to their markets. Unfortunately, the tea plantations have long gone and Yorkshire tea actually now comes from cheaper sources in India and Sri Lanka.

 

Jen ?

Didn't they call them 'Brooks' in those days, and there were 'bonded' warehouses at the County borders  that were called "Brook Bond"

[Sea Dog]

3 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

a long and interTwinning history

Groan!

 

The rest is true though, and is why nowt much grows ont moors - all t'goodness has gone from t'soil into making generations of stout Yorkshire lasses and the country's finest cricketers.  A sacrifice worth making.

[Lily Rose]

16 minutes ago, Mac of Cygnet said:

 

But what about all the leaves and dead fish and ducksh*t and stuff?  Stove ash isn't biodegradable, and I certainly don't chuck that in, although some people do.

Exactly! There's already loads of stuff going into the canals to gradually silt them up so why make it even worse by chucking in stuff that doesn't need to go in?

 

Maybe the effect is negligible but every little helps (or hinders in this case). If we all did this at popular mooring sites surely it would make them shallower a bit faster than if we didn't.

[Dr Bob]

20 minutes ago, DandV said:

Be careful , The temperatures at the grate and the ash pan  are quite low, So certainly burning pvc results in some hydrochloric acid production which ain't great in contact with iron, and the environment in general. Specialised incinerators burn hot and also scrub the exhaust stream to remove the considerable nasties. Well beyond the ability of the nut gathering red or grey rodent stove.

That's what I said. Burning PVC is a no-no as is PET and other plastics with a specific gravity above 1.0 (ie all the oxygen or nitrogen containing ones). Dont do it!

...but burning PE/PP is ok if you keep your temps up....ie not at tick over. PE and PP make up 70% of the waste plastic thrown away today.

 

25 minutes ago, Mac of Cygnet said:

 

But what about all the leaves and dead fish and ducksh*t and stuff? 

My duck 'goes' in the bushes.

[DandV]

2 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

That's what I said. Burning PVC is a no-no as is PET and other plastics with a specific gravity above 1.0 (ie all the oxygen or nitrogen containing ones). Dont do it!

...but burning PE/PP is ok if you keep your temps up....ie not at tick over. PE and PP make up 70% of the waste plastic thrown away today.

 

My duck 'goes' in the bushes.

I have been guilty of using expanded polystyrene as fire lighters and simultaneously reducing the volume of our rubbish tin

[Dr Bob]

39 minutes ago, BWM said:

Aside from the impact on health, the burning of plastic is, in my opinion, very antisocial. It stinks, and if you are unfortunate enough to suffer from asthma highly debilitating. Even though it is inevitable as a boater that you will be exposed to fumes from coal, some diesel/engine oil from tired motors, etc the burning of plastic is completely avoidable - why on earth would you do It?

 

Burning PE or PP does not stink. It burns far cleaner than coal and especially if you have a decent air draft which you tend to do when you put PE/PP on. Your are lumping all 'plastics' as bad which is missleading. They are not. Do you burn candles? PE is essentially the same stuff but higher molecular weight. At 550°C, the polymer chain unzips and forms ethylene which then ignites and burns cleanly to CO2. PP does the same but the unzipping forms ethylene (a little bit of propylene) and methane which then all ignite and go to CO2 and water.

Having said that, I dont burn plastic. I put it in a bin for it to either be incinerated in a plant where they recover the energy (so backing out other fuel being burnt for power) or to be mechanically recycled so it replaces virgin plastic hence less CO2 into the atmosphere. In time the world will learn to recycle the plastics (only 10% is recycled in the UK at present) as it is a commodity like paper that can have many lives. In  the meantime, our waste plastic is either landfilled or the stuff not picked out for recycle (the 10%) is baled up and sent now to Turkey (China wont take it) where the best bits are hand picked out and the rest sold on. They then take out the next best bits and the rest sold on...and so on. Eventually the rest ends up dumped in a river where it then finds its way to the ocean.

In the above I am not advocating burning PE/PP on your stove but just a rant over our inability as a species to utilise such an important commodity that we have spent a lot of energy making in the first place.

[BWM]

44 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Burning PE or PP does not stink. It burns far cleaner than coal and especially if you have a decent air draft which you tend to do when you put PE/PP on. Your are lumping all 'plastics' as bad which is missleading. They are not. Do you burn candles? PE is essentially the same stuff but higher molecular weight. At 550°C, the polymer chain unzips and forms ethylene which then ignites and burns cleanly to CO2. PP does the same but the unzipping forms ethylene (a little bit of propylene) and methane which then all ignite and go to CO2 and water.

Having said that, I dont burn plastic. I put it in a bin for it to either be incinerated in a plant where they recover the energy (so backing out other fuel being burnt for power) or to be mechanically recycled so it replaces virgin plastic hence less CO2 into the atmosphere. In time the world will learn to recycle the plastics (only 10% is recycled in the UK at present) as it is a commodity like paper that can have many lives. In  the meantime, our waste plastic is either landfilled or the stuff not picked out for recycle (the 10%) is baled up and sent now to Turkey (China wont take it) where the best bits are hand picked out and the rest sold on. They then take out the next best bits and the rest sold on...and so on. Eventually the rest ends up dumped in a river where it then finds its way to the ocean.

In the above I am not advocating burning PE/PP on your stove but just a rant over our inability as a species to utilise such an important commodity that we have spent a lot of energy making in the first place.

Well explained, I doubt many (myself included would be able to differentiate between good and bad plastic however! I'm a little jaded with this issue, having had a mooring where we had endured years of plastic fumes from three adjacent boats. Any attempt to take it up with them fell on deaf ears, a shame because it was pure laziness that motivated them.

[Horace42]

2 hours ago, DandV said:

I used to have two problems. 1/  getting the charcoal alight in our tow path barbeque.

2/ getting rid of the white spirit I had used for brush cleaning.

Combine  1 & 2 Two problems solved 

 

 

I use a gas torch to light it, and a hand-held face-cooler fan to make it blaze up.

[cuthound]

3 hours ago, rusty69 said:

I wouldn't use firefighters unless you want to put it out

 

But will they will burn if doused in white spirit? ?

[Jen-in-Wellies]

3 hours ago, rusty69 said:

I wouldn't use firefighters unless you want to put it out

That would be those "safety" non-flammable firelighters you get now. I tend to use kitchen towel, scrunched up and soaked in cooking oil, but mainly because I forget to put firelighters on the shopping list.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Alan de Enfield]

23 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

That would be those "safety" non-flammable firelighters you get now. I tend to use kitchen towel, scrunched up and soaked in cooking oil, but mainly because I forget to put firelighters on the shopping list.

Check the spelling of 'Firelighters' and 'Firefighters'

 

There is F-all difference.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Check the spelling of 'Firelighters' and 'Firefighters'

 

There is F-all difference.

Didn't spot that. Think I might need new glasses.

[Horace42]

16 hours ago, sueb said:

Old trainers burn well

...is that after you have taken off ?

[Dr Bob]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Check the spelling of 'Firelighters' and 'Firefighters'

 

There is F-all difference.

That's why I F'ing missed it!

 

eta......and hello  to @Victor Vectis who we passed earlier this afternoon going through Knowle locks...but no time to stop and chat as the wind was blowing a hoolie in the short pound.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Dr Bob

[system 4-50]

Firefighters seem to go off with time.  Old ones don't work as well as new ones, even though they are individually wrapped.

[Stilllearning]

18 hours ago, sueb said:

Old trainers burn well

That’s no way to talk about Mr Motivator

2 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

Firefighters seem to go off with time.  Old ones don't work as well as new ones, even though they are individually wrapped.

The mind boggles!

[Alan de Enfield]

27 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

Firefighters seem to go off with time.  Old ones don't work as well as new ones, even though they are individually wrapped.

They probably get very sweaty inside the wrapper and start to go mouldy and wrinkly.

[ditchcrawler]

10 hours ago, Athy said:

How inventive, I've never heard of that method before!

I am surprised that you have found newspaper useless, as generations of kindlers have used it successfully. Perhaps you were using the glossy magazine-style paper? This does not catch light well. You need the matt daily paper-type paper.

But they use to have an oil based ink, today some papers just go out

[DandV]

7 hours ago, Horace42 said:

I use a gas torch to light it, and a hand-held face-cooler fan to make it blaze up.

We had a metal cake tin. At the end of barbecuing we tipped the glowing embers into the cake tin and popped the lid on. 10minutes later the tin would be cool enough to handle as lack of oxygen would promptly extinguish life. For the next barbeque we would shake the fine white ash free from the embers in the cake tin and then place them on top of fresh charcoal in the barbeque before lighting. About 50% new to 50% old.

The cake tin lid doubled as an effective fan.

[MtB]

11 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

I'm confused with all this talk of lighting fires. We just buy a pack of firefighters. Lasts over a year as we light the fire and it runs for a month or more. We need the firefighters for the barby.

 

You clearly don't have a Boatman Stove....

 

Mine won't stay in for more than about 12 hours. My Squirrel would happily stay alight with no attention whatsoever for 48. 

 

 

But I agree about the firelighters. I too buy about one pack a year, for £1.50 in Co Op. Most of them get used in the temperate weather like now, when I keep allowing the stove to go out as the days are warm.

[Dr Bob]

2 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You clearly don't have a Boatman Stove....

 

Mine won't stay in for more than about 12 hours. My Squirrel would happily stay alight with no attention whatsoever for 48. 

 

 

But I agree about the firelighters. I too buy about one pack a year, for £1.50 in Co Op. Most of them get used in the temperate weather like now, when I keep allowing the stove to go out as the days are warm.

......but I do have a boatman. The squirrel was cracked when we bought the boat so we decided to get a steel rather than cars iron one. Light it, stays in for months, let it go out if away from the boat for a few days. Tried 5 different types of coal and non have gone out overnight. Flue is pretty short.

[Richard10002]

3 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You clearly don't have a Boatman Stove....

 

Mine won't stay in for more than about 12 hours.

I dont think he meant that he lit it and it burned for months without coal and attention

 

When I spend more than a day on the boat in the depths of winter, I keep it going 24/7. Top it up before going to bed, (1am or so), with the screw thing open about a quarter to a half a turn. In the morning, anything between 8am and 11am, top it up, going to work if it's one of those days. Get home about 6 or 7pm, top it up again..... and so on. No need for it to keep going without attention for more than 9 or 10 hours at a time.

 

If leaving the boat for a day or two, or more, I let it go out, and light it again when I return.

 

I know you dont really like the Boatman, but there will be those of us who are happy with them, (in my case, I know no different  )