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Written by Natalya Stanko   
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Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Green Boating

You don't have to rev up a motor to enjoy a day on the water. Paddle in a kayak or sail in the wind! Row your boat down the stream... and you won't have to renew that gym membership ☺ All this being considered, that's not to say you should abandon your motor boat right away. Forsaken boats, which are becoming more commonplace during the economic recession, are introducing a plethora of environmental problems, like sheens of leaking oil.1 If your boat has an engine that runs on fossil fuels, consider following these instructions to keep our waters clean.

BENEFITS FOR YOU AND THE ENVIRONMENT: When a motor boat runs smoothly, it gobbles fossil fuels. When it doesn't, its environmental footprint gets even larger. Each year, Americans spill 180 million gallons of used oil into our waters.2 That's more than 85% of the amount of oil spilled after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout . A single pint of spilled oil can cover one acre of water surface area, affecting thousands of species of animals, plants and microbes.3 Moreover, discharging oil that causes a sheen to form on water violates federal law, and violators are subject to a penalty of $5,000.4

Cost: Medium

Time and effort: Medium

Guidelines for Clean Boating
  • Take precautions when fueling up. Gas or diesel can overflow out the vent fitting or backsplash out the fuel intake. Use two oil absorbent pads, one around the fuel nozzle and the other around the boat's fuel opening.5 Slow down at the beginning and end of fueling, and fill the tank to no more than 90% capacity to give the gas room to expand as it warms. Don't fill up when you return to port. Instead, do it right before your next trip to prevent spills due to thermal expansion.6

  • Use a non-spill pump when changing motor oil. Before removing a used oil filter, cover it in a plastic bag to catch drips. The Maryland Clean Marina Initiative also recommends “punching a hole in the dome end [of the filter] and draining [it] for 24 hours.”7 Recycle used motor oil and metal canisters. Use the amount of oil recommended by the engine manufacturer. Purchase premium oils, which burn cleaner.

  • Keep your engine tuned to minimize fuel and oil leaks. Place oil-absorbent pads under the engine and in your bilge.

  • Minimize water pollution. Clean dishes and take showers on shore whenever possible. Save boat maintenance projects for the boatyard. If you must perform maintenance on the water, make sure you have an extra absorbent pad on hand to catch spills.

  • If a spill occurs, do not try to clean it yourself—call the U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center at 800-424-8802. Do not use soaps to disperse fuel and oil. Adding soap is detrimental to marine life, and it's illegal.8

  • Improve your gas mileage. Lighten up your boat by throwing out everything that you don't need. Make sure your propeller is free of dings, clean your hull, and don't idle unnecessarily. To offset your boat's remaining carbon emissions, purchase carbon credits Carbon Offsets How Do They Work . Calculate your boat's carbon footprint here.



  • Dispose of waste properly. Don't discharge sewage within three miles of shore. Empty sewage in harbor dump station or bathrooms. To get ride of engine oil that accumulates in the bilge, look for contractors or marinas that offer a bilge pump-out service. Know what type of oil-absorbent pads you are using, and dispose of them as the Maryland Clean Marina Initiative outlines:

    • Standard absorbents that are saturated with gasoline may be air dried and reused.
    • Standard absorbents saturated with oil or diesel may be wrung out over oil recycling bins (if they are saturated with oil or diesel only!) and reused. Alternatively, they should be double bagged with one plastic bag sealed inside of another and tossed in your regular trash.
    • Bioremediating bilge booms may be disposed in your regular trash as long as they are not dripping any liquid. Because the microbes need oxygen to function, do not seal them in plastic bags.9

  • When you're on board, live by the same environmental values that you abide by on shore. Clean with baking soda and vinegar instead of commercial chemical cleaners whenever possible. Before cleaning your vessel, check out this detailed list of alternatives to toxic products. Always use phosphate-free, biodegradable soap. Don't throw any sort of garbage (not even cigarette butts or fishing line) into the water. There are strong legal incentives to recycle… throw some plastic in U.S. waters and you might face a fine of $50,000!10

  • If you're looking to ditch the motor, you needn't ditch your boat. Even yachts can run on renewable energy after conversion. To flaunt the feasibility of earth-friendly power, PlanetSolar, a 100-by-50-foot white catamaran with 5,380 square feet of black solar panels, is scheduled to circumnavigate the world this year.11

    • Do you want to go solar, too? Purchase a solar panel (or two), a battery to store energy, and a controller.
    • Want to harness the energy of the wind but not a fan of sailing? Exchange the solar panel for a wind generator (but be prepared for a noisy ride). Water seems like an obvious energy source for a boat; purchase a water-towed impeller and you're set12. Visit Boat Trader for tips on which machines to buy and for how much.
James Taylor once said, “Being on a boat that's moving through the water, it's so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what's important and what's not.” When you're out boating in the waters, consider which natural places are most important to you, and make sure they are preserved for future generations. For starters, join the National River Cleanup, which removed 2 million pounds of trash from America's waterways last year,13 or participate in the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup, which collected more than a million beverage bottles in just one day.14 Here’s to clean boating!

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1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01boats.html
2 http://jccleanwater.org/specific-issues/auto-fluids
3 http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/clean_boating.htm
4 Id.
5 http://saveourshores.org/what-we-do/clean-boating-dockwalkers.php
6 http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/clean_boating.htm
7 Id.
8 Id.
9 http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/clean_boating.htm
10 http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/polcg.htm
11 http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-25-worlds-biggest-solar-powered-boat-unveiled
12 http://www.boattrader.com/research/news-tips/green-boating/turn-your-boat-into-a-green-ma/
13 http://www.americanrivers.org/our-work/restoring-rivers/national-river-cleanup/
14 http://www.oceanconservancy.org/our-work/marine-debris/international-coastal-cleanup-11.html




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Green Facts

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.