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Let’s face it, good food and drink is an essential part of enjoying time on the water.

Unfortunately, so many boaters seem to forget that they are on the water when it comes time to whip up a meal or pass out the sundowners. Troll through any big marina, hit a crowded beach, or just spend a few days floating around and you are pretty much guaranteed to come across all sorts of junk that has escaped from the galley.

Styrofoam  dishes, plastic utensils , food containers, the stray synthetic “coolie cup” that slipped off somebody’s cold one, coolers, and of course our constant companion, the disposable water bottle, are just a few of the  things that so many boaters take for granted. And yet, this stuff is literally choking the waterways we claim to enjoy.

When it comes time to set up your galley please keep a simple principle in mind – Do not use anything that will not break down if it goes over the side.  

This precautionary principle will serve you well in many aspects of boating, and it is fairly easy to apply if you put your mind to it. All you have to do is look at everything you use in or around the galley and find a natural alternative to the cheap plastic junk that all the ads tell you belong on a boat.

Sound hard? Maybe.

 Doable? Of course.

Worth The Trouble? Your conscience can easily answer this one.

Let’s look at some common galley gear and the green alternatives that are out there.

Dishes –

Plain old paper plates are a good choice if you are on a budget, although they do take up precious space in the trash and a tree was probably cut down somewhere along the production line. If you go this route, shell out another buck or two for the stuff made from recycled paper products. Don’t let the marketing gurus trick you into buy recyclable instead. Remember, advertising executives know our attention span is often short enough that we can be duped into thinking recyclable and recycled mean the same thing. In fact, any paper product “can” be recycled, but most never are.  If you do go the disposable route you also need to avoid the poly-paper blend versions. These are usually shiny, slick, and come in lots of fancy colors. As sturdy and pretty as they may be, the poly base means they are full of chemicals, petroleum, and all sorts of bad stuff. If you really want disposable stuff, look for the new cornstarch or sugarcane based plastic dishes, or even those single use versions made from bamboo or other sustainable materials. The new bio-plastics can be a little tough to find, and while they look like traditional plastic, they will actually biodegrade with ease since they are made from vegetable oils. Be careful using the bio-plastics with really hot stuff, sometimes it melts. Wood dishes have come a long way in recent years. Many options exist from plain to fancy, and most of the wood stuff comes from sustainably grown plants like bamboo (technically a grass, not a wood), acacia, and others.  Be mindful you don’t buy a nice natural wood bowl covered in paint or some other synthetic finish. Look for food safe oils or other natural, plant based finishes. Stainless steel dishes are great on a boat. Now I know the image of a steel mill doesn’t exactly conjure up environmentally friendly images. However, if you compare the environmental impact of a set of stainless dishes that you will have on board for years and that will break down given enough time in the water vs. the completely non-biodegradable plastic set you replace every season or two, stainless wins hands down. Glass and ceramic can be good choices if you can keep them from breaking. Consider recycled glass products, and be wary of ceramic glazes, many contain lead or other nasty stuff.

Utensils –

Biodegradable plastic utensils are available if you look hard enough, but again be careful with hot stuff. Leaving a bio-plastic spoon in a hot baked potato might leave you with nothing but the handle. Wood is a great option here, especially chopsticks. Kids love trying to master them and clean up is easy. Good stainless utensils will last for years, although some people don’t like the metallic taste they can impart.

Pots and Pans – This is a tough one for some folks, and an area where we get a lot of opinions. You obviously can’t use wood over an open flame, although when properly used, bamboo steamers are quite versatile and double as attractive food servers. For the most part stainless steel is the greenest option available. Cast iron works great, but is prone to rusting, especially on a boat. At www.greenboatstuff.com we refuse to carry non-stick cookware. Treated with Teflon, or some other such synthetic, these cook-sets make clean up a breeze, but at a steep price. Mounting evidence shows that the chemicals from these non-stick coatings are showing up in the bloodstream of people around the globe, and even in the breast milk of nursing mothers. Who knows the damage this may ultimately cause, but for our part, we think folks would rather scrub a little harder instead of ingesting Teflon. 

Food Storage – Use stainless steel instead of plastic. More and more stainless food containers are coming on the market all the time. The folks at To-Go Ware have a great product just for this purpose. For more info check out www.greenboatstuff.com/towaststfoca.html

Liquid Storage – I won’t bore you with more statistics on how many disposable plastic water bottles are literally floating around out there, but the numbers are staggering. Recent concerns about PCB (chemical code for really nasty stuff) contaminants leaching from those cute, multi-colored “permanent” plastic water bottles has made a lot of people rethink their water bottles. These same concerns have a lot of concerned mom’s looking for alternatives to the traditional poly sippy cups and baby bottles too.  New “good plastic” water bottles that supposedly do not leach toxins are making the rounds as a result, but most of these are still petroleum-based, permanent plastic none the less.  The best water bottles, in my opinion, are either stainless steel or aluminum. Built to last for years, these bottles can be made from recycled materials and then recycled themselves when they finally give out. Be careful with aluminum though - as long as the bottle has an impermeable liner you should be fine, bottles without liners can impart toxins of their own. Food grade stainless steel is one of the best materials out there for both food and liquid storage. Tough and relatively lightweight, stainless does not require a liner to be safe.

Towels, Linens and Soft Stuff – Avoid anything synthetic. Polyester, nylon, or artificial fibers not only cause problems when they are created, but they can persist in the environment for years. Focus on natural fibers like organic cotton, hemp, and the like. These materials cause minimal if any harm in their production, and they also break down easily if they ever go over the side.

Chip Clips, Towel Hooks and all the Little Stuff – Once again, avoid synthetics. Nylon or plastic galley gadgets come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colors. All you really need to know about this junk is that it polluted the environment when it was made, and it will be here 100,000 years from now. Brass, bronze, stainless steel, and even wood are good examples of materials that can do the job well, last for ages, usually be recycled, and yet cause minimal damage to the environment. Avoid painted gear if you can, along with chrome, zinc, or other plated surfaces. All this stuff causes harm.

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Alternatives to Traditional Plastic Trash Bags.

Anyone who has spent time on or near the water lately has almost certainly come across a plastic bag? Whether they are floating by your stern, dancing down the beach, or wrapped around a tree branch, this junk is everywhere. As if it were not enough that we have to look at this garbage dump we have created, we must also recognize that it will be here in one form or another for countless generations to come.

You see, as cheap and convenient as plastic bags are, they come with a much higher true cost to the environment. Mass produced in the industrial boom of post-World War II, every plastic bag ever created is still out there today, either in its original form, or in smaller pieces. Hailed as a “wonder” product by the marketing gurus, the only thing “wonderful” about disposable plastic is that it exposes how short sighted and selfish mankind has become.

Without getting too technical, the bottom line is that plastic bags never really go away. Created from chemicals, primarily petroleum, the modern plastic bag cannot be broken down into biodegradable compounds.  Just to name a few, all the plastic bags in use today - grocery bags, food storage bags, small and large trash bags, pet waste bags, etc…etc… will persist in the environment forever.

Plastic bags can certainly change form.  Given enough time and sunlight, plastic can “degrade” into smaller and smaller pieces, but the same amount of unnatural material still exists, just in pieces. Bury it in an oxygen free landfall and it might shrink a little, but that’s it. Burn it and plastic turns into a glob of goo, releasing most of its toxic components into the atmosphere.

The only hope that plastic bags will ever disappear lies several hundred thousand years in the future.  By then it is possible bacteria will have evolved capable of consuming this stuff and converting it back into its elemental form.  Anybody really care to wait a few thousand centuries?

Unfortunately, most bags just end up literally floating around. Cruise through any metropolitan marina and plastic is in the water. Running an Internet search on the effects of plastic on marine life will reveal facts and images that even the worst litterbug would be ashamed of.  Casualties of the plastic bag include sea birds, marine mammals, fish, and more. 

One of the greatest victims is the peaceful sea turtle. After making it through the last 100 million years or so just fine, these majestic creatures are on the fast track to extinction these days. To be fair to the plastic merchants, fishermen and egg poachers have done most of the damage to the turtles, but a plastic bag adrift at sea looks remarkably similar to a jelly fish, one of the turtle’s favorite foods. For any skeptics out there, try swallowing a few grocery bags and see how you feel.

The gruesome particulars of the damage done include intestinal blockages, suffocation, and the particularly cruel one- starvation. You see as the belly of sea creatures fill up with non-biodegradable plastic there is less and less room for real food, leading to weakness, sickness, and death.

How did we get here - to this point in our development as a species where we are willing to sacrifice one of the most noble, gentle, and harmless creatures ever created so we can stuff more junk in a sack?

So what are we to do?

It’s simple really, stop using traditional plastic.

Viable alternatives exist.

First, get some reusable shopping bags and use them at the store. Organic cotton, hemp, and other natural fabrics are your best choices, but any fabric is better than plastic.

Here is a link to some examples

http://www.greenboatstuff.com/bagscases.html 

Just avoid polyester or recycled plastic bags if you can. Sure, you can argue that the tough bags made from these synthetics are better than disposable bags, after all they are using recycled materials right? While there is some truth to this argument it doesn’t solve the problem of eliminating disposable synthetics in the first place, it only shuffles them around some.  The only way we can break the cycle is to stop using synthetics in the first place.

To quote someone with tremendous insight –

“In Nature no synthetic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.” – Barry Commoner

If you must choose between paper or plastic in the checkout line go with paper. Many valid environmental issues surround paper production, but trees grow and paper can biodegrade. As in many green choices there is often a choice between the lesser of two evils. In my opinion paper bags do less harm.

Second, consider biodegradable, vegetable based plastic bags. Yes they do exist now.  Plan on paying more for biobags than you would regular plastic, but when you measure the true cost of both options, biobags are a bargain. Made from corn, biobags will breakdown harmlessly given some oxygen and sunshine, both readily available in any ocean, lake, or river. Available in several sizes, from small to large, and several in between.  

One thing to be wary of are the new plastic bags that advertise themselves as "degradable." There is quite a difference between biodegradable and degradable. Biodegradable bags break down into natural compounds and return their contents to the Earth. Degradable plastic simply falls apart with time, converting one big piece of eternal plastic into countless smaller pieces.

For more details follow this link

http://www.greenboatstuff.com/bitrba.html

Third, replace your sandwich bags and plastic wrap with bleach free waxed paper bags and food wrap. Renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable, waxed paper is a very green alternative.  

One more link

http://www.greenboatstuff.com/wabothcucofo.html

Once again, green alternatives to damaging products exist, work well, and are affordable too; all it takes is a little effort on all our parts to do the right thing.

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