the things you just don't think about.

i was watching the documentary series that PBS has just come out with called Carrier. They did a short segment about the air craft carriers wast room. They melt down plastic and then throw the "dunnage" into the ocean. this consists of all food scraps, including bones. Scrap wood (like off broken things) and tin cans. And when thy are far from shore they dump their sewage in the ocean as well.

I thought they had some better containment system than that. the guy said that they don't dump anything in the ocean that would polute it aside from the sewage if they have to.

i can see they would need to do something as there are over 5000 PPL on the ship but i had never thought about it.

They also said that they are more enviromentally friendly than the crusie ships... that's a scarry thought. I wonder what THEY are dumping in the ocean?

I did but, I am glad you are bringing this info to this forum. Anyone ever hear of "blue ice"? Just curious if anyone knows where the blue fluid in airline lavatories is disposed of. btw, I do know the answer.

As to why the carriers have to dump the dunnage I would not be the best person to explain that. I saw someone in another forum on the boards with the board name Tango--. I think they could explain better than I could. There is a legitimate reason for what they are doing on the aircraft carriers.

Tango------ Do you copy?

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for the length of time they are at sea and to have over 5000 PPL on one ship for that whole time they would have to do something with it and I'm sure every inch of space on a carrier is valuable and they just don't have a lot of open room to store garbage. i was suprised though mostly that they were throwing their cans over board, I mean it's metal! If they can melt plastic to compat it why not compact the metal also? It is valuable.

Well that complaint is legit. Again, I am not the best person to explain this but, aircraft carriers have to carry enough fuel to make a trip before they they are able to refuel. If they don't lower the weight then they need more fuel for the trip. There aren't any refueling areas over the ocean. Have you seen any footage of the of m*litary aircraft being refueled in flight?

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i have seen that before. My Dad was in the Air Force and the Navy (though he got out when I was still in diapers). I has just never thought about it.

Have you checked out the series? it's on PBS and they follow the crew of a carrier and tell the inside stories of their lives before and what they are doing now that they are in the service. Verry intresting. But I love documentaries.

Heres the PBS site for the 10 part series
http://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/

I am big fan of PBS. Thanks for the info on the series. We love documentaries too.

Recently some blue ice showed up on a school playground here!!! Yuck!!!

We hear news stories about it here when it lands on and goes through the roof of someone's house in our area. Then they report that the odds of it happening are very low. I don't think the odds would matter to me if it was my house it happened to.

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Organic material - food and sewage - will decay in the ocean. The edible bits will be eaten by marine life. Salt is very hard on metal. It will corode into nothing. I have no problem with large ships dumping this stuff far from shore.

quote:

Originally posted by still tryin:
Well that complaint is legit. Again, I am not the best person to explain this but, aircraft carriers have to carry enough fuel to make a trip before they they are able to refuel. If they don't lower the weight then they need more fuel for the trip. There aren't any refueling areas over the ocean. Have you seen any footage of the of m*litary aircraft being refueled in flight?

I believe all US aircraft carriers are nuke powered, they refuel every couple of years. Other ships in the fleet are diesel powered but the carriers and subs are nukes.

Years ago it was not uncommon for cities to dump their sewage out at sea untreated. I did my open water certification dive in a trench that West Palm Beach FLA dug in the ocean floor for their sewage line. It never went into service and is now a really cool reef. In the giant scheme of things the sewage from the entire fleet is not going to pollute the ocean, where do you think whales go? I'd be more concern with what weekend boaters dump over the sides of their boats closer to shore.

There are 2 reactors on that ship.

I said I did understand it and I just hadn't thought of it and their point about them benig more enviromentally concious than cruise ships makes me wonder what THEY dump in the ocean. Anyone know?

I just was suprised that htey dumped metal over. Seems like the millitary, of all things, would want to conserve that, seeming how they require so much of it them selves.

I get it. You are asking about the pleasure cruise ships, right?

btw, I don't know the answer.

LOL Still Tryin'....I was thinking you were implicating that is what was in the BLUE ICE thermo packs we put in our childrens lunchboxes to keep them cool.... Phew.....

LOL GreenAlice - I'm never going to get anything done around my house today because now I'm going to be looking that one up.

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it just opened my eyes to something that never crossed my mind. And the guys comment in the trash room while he was dumping his dunnage about the crusie ships just makes me wonder. If htey dump that much stuff (and it has to go somwhere) and they are better than the cruise liners, I'm thinking the cruise ships do separate as carefully or something.

It's just something that i never considered. I'm sure alot of PPL never have thought about ships at sea and what they may be poluting.

IMHO Cruise ships don't have an excuse for throwing trash overboard. They are never out of port for more than a day or two. Out at sea the sewage isn't a big deal but in port or close to shore it is a pretty nasty proposition.

Rachel ~ We can send a rocket to Saturn and go the moon but cannot contain waste until returning to the dock???????????? I don't get it. Of course, I've not been accused of being the smartest person in the Universe.



Progress not perfection

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