At home, every 2-3 weeks, I take a load of mostly recyclables in 4 or 5 bins and quickly(recycling is a learned habit) dump them into marked dumpsters. Lastly, a bag or two of garbage that we couldn't recycle or compost, in a $2.00 Waste District bag(s), goes into the on site compactor. Typical today?

3 years ago while doing some galley work, I built in a small trash hopper under the sink. This was to replace a much larger, tall kitchen plastic garbage bin we kept stuffed next to the companionway ladder. Just like home, with more and more items going into recycling bins, real garbage volume needs have shrunk onboard.

These days we fill the new hopper with smallest sized(12"x12"?) 'trash bags' with garbage. When full and tops tied, these small bundles go into a bin with a top in one of our deep cockpit lockers. The rest, plastic-paper-cans+bottles go on the bridgedeck or under the dodger until it gets stuffed into the old tall kitchen garbage bin, now also in the cockpit lockers.

Now we have half garbage in small bags, and half recyclables, in another bag(gotta get rid of those plastic bags!). Sort of like home.

Garbage,just like diesel, water, holding tank, ice, ticks loudly in my head. There's limited space for all the necessities of life, on a boat. The volume of trash/recyclables can add up quickly on our boat.

When we're off for a few weeks(especially when as a family of 4), like most sailors, we have our eyes peeled for dumpsters. The unfortunate fact is few places we sail to are equipped to recycle. Too often, everything goes into one dumpster(we have to be desperate to do that these days, especially as we've recycled-sorted).

But the times are changing, especially on resource challenged islands. Recycle bins plus pay/ bag (modest) garbage stations are cropping up, and welcome to my eyes.

How do you deal with garbage onboard? Any good ideas that are helping? In the end I want to be as independent of shoreside facilities as possible on my boat. That improves the quality of my sailing life immensely.