Clean up your act!

Is our cruise industry doing enough to clean up its act where pollution and waste disposal are concerned?

recycle_logo_and_globe

There is no doubt that things have come a long way in the last 15 years or so.

1998 saw the likes of Carnival cruises being fined $2 million for discharging oil waste off the coast of Alaska and Royal Caribbean being fined $9 million in the same year.

One year on in 1999 and Royal Caribbean had not learnt its lesson being fined a record breaking $18 million for dumping waste at sea. Then the second largest cruise line in the World, it dumped oil and chemicals into the ocean off US waters on 21 seperate occasions.

Regulations vary in different areas of the globe.

Just 3 miles from shore in the open Caribbean Sea, ships are dumping ground-up glass, rags and cardboard packaging. But vessels in other waters such as the Baltic and North seas are prohibited from throwing any solid waste overboard other than food scraps within 25 miles.

The United Nations created the ban to protect areas that are vulnerable because of heavy ship traffic or sensitive ecology. It has already taken effect in the Antarctic, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the Persian Gulf and is due to come into force in the Mediterranean in May.

In the Mediterranean, coastal nations are highly aware of marine litter and did not resist the ban. Under the current Caribbean regulations, ships can begin dumping garbage, including metal, glass and paper, three miles from shore as long as it is ground to less than an inch. Almost anything but plastic can be dumped beyond 25 miles.

These bans sound all well and good in theory but who is there to enforce them?

Marine_debris_on_Hawaiian_coast

It also begs the question, just because they can, should they?

Even if the cruise companies and shipping companies are conforming to this regulation or that regulation,  should they still do it because they can? Is it not morally the responsibility of these companies to ensure they do not damage the beautiful and in some cases fragile environments that they visit?

Remarkably the cruise lines who were the worse culprits once upon a time are now the industry leaders in trying to ensure they remain Green.

At present, the cruise lines have a few options for dealing with waste:

1. Collect the waste to dry and burn before dumping it.

2. Collect the waste to dry and burn it and send it ashore.

3. Collect it to be properly treated and handled by an onshore private company.

4. Collect it and dump it into the ocean approx. 12 miles offshore depending on location, the most   cost-effective option that complies with federal law.

So what do we know? We know the cruise companies have stringent policies in place and Environmental officers to enforce them.

For example:

Carnival Cruise lines recycles, incinerates or offloads a multitude of materials (plastic, glass, aluminium, scrap metal, cooking oil, petroleum oil, toner cartridges, electronics, refrigerants and photo processing liquids) from its ships for disposal on land. Ships process and incinerate solid waste on-board whenever possible or send it to an approved shore side facility for treatment, recycling or disposal. Even oily bilge water is subjected to its own three-step engineering process. Furniture, mattresses, linens, small appliances, kitchenware, clothing and nearly two dozen other items are donated to charities instead of sent to landfills.

Rather than idle in port, which wastes fuel and creates air and noise pollution, the ships plug into electrical power at port, allowing them to switch off internal power sources.

All Carnival Cruise Lines employees attend a training course on shipboard waste management. The cruise line also provides specialized or advanced training to all shipboard and relevant shore side employees. All ships have environmental officers.

Through an alliance with the International Sea Keepers Society, Carnival has installed scientific devices on four ships (Triumph, Legend, Miracle and Spirit) to monitor ocean water quality and other climatic info. Environmental groups, governmental agencies and universities receive the data via satellite. It aids them in assessing ocean pollution, climate change and weather patterns. The line also participates in beach clean ups and other community programs through its affiliation with the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association.

Specially marked containers are scattered throughout each ship in the fleet to encourage cruisers to recycle. Designated bins collect food, glass, aluminium and plastic products; recycling bins are also located in steward stations, galley and crew areas, room service pantries and bar pantries.

Carnival-Cruise

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, Including Celebrity and Azamara in the family, participate in the Save the Waves program, which employs an advanced waste water purification system that treats waste water on board. There’s a zero-discharge policy on solid waste; food waste is pulped and discharged more than 12 miles from land. To nip unnecessary waste in the bud, the line eliminated disposable plastic items typically available to cruisers such as shampoo bottles, plastic plates and flatware etc… in favour of reusable or biodegradable options.

An environmental officer maintains the overall program on each ship. All crew receive training on their environmental responsibilities.

Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas is equipped with an atmospheric and oceanographic laboratory to help scientists conduct ocean and climate research. The lab, operated by the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), can track pollutants in the air and sea, measure the flow of currents to understand the balance and distribution of heat on the planet, collect data to use in ocean and hurricane models, and monitor populations of organisms living in the sea. Although the focus is long-term scientific study and analysis, the National Hurricane Centre also uses the data to improve storm track predictions. The company is installing new generators, which will produce electricity much more efficiently, on Radiance- and Millennium-class ships.

Royal Caribbean is also investing in alternative abatement technologies to clean fossil fuel emissions before they are released to the atmosphere. It continues to test out two such scrubber systems.

The Ocean Fund, established in 1996 by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., has since awarded more than $12 million in grants to more than 70 marine conservation organizations dedicated to protecting the ecosystems of the world’s oceans. The Celebrity Xpedition Galapagos Fund, established in 2006, supports the conservation and protection of the Galapagos Islands through passenger donations.

Royal Caribbean’s Adventure Ocean program offers children and teens hands-on science experiments involving the environment. In the Caribbean, for instance, young cruisers can analyse the region’s clouds, air temperature, precipitation, humidity and more in special “edutainment” classes.

Royal-Caribbean-ship

Hats off to these companies.

However!

MSC Cruises, on board Policies: MSC Cruises ships are equipped with garbage incinerators, pulpers, grinders and compactors for garbage processing, as well as water treatment plants. Hazardous or dangerous garbage is collected in suitable containers. All waste is treated, including aluminium cans, which are recycled into sheet aluminium at port. There are also environmentally friendly incinerator units for both wood and paper. MSC Cruises’ plastic reduction policy is based on the following actions: replacement, where feasible, of plastic containers with cardboard or glass; purchasing provisions in bulk packaging; exchanging empty containers with full ones with suppliers; and replacing small plastic consumable items with fixed ones.

Each ship has an environmental officer, and MSC also employs a shore-based environmental coordinator who’s responsible for overseeing all environmental operations throughout the fleet.

MSC Splendida and MSC Fantasia received the prestigious “Six Golden Pearls” award from the international classification society Bureau Veritas. MSC Splendida also received the first Energy Efficient Design designation by Bureau Veritas. Most recently, MSC Preziosa received “Seven Golden Pearls” from Bureau Veritas. MSC Cruises was one of the first lines to support the “Venice Blue Flag” project, set up to control emissions of all the ships in transit between Bocca di Porto Lido and the Maritime Station of this lagoon capital.

Each passenger’s cruise card doubles as the on/off switch for electricity and air-conditioning in his or her stateroom; the system disables certain lights, hair dryers and air-conditioning when the cabin is unoccupied. Environmental advisories are included in in the Daily Program.

MSC cruises

Wow again!

But is this the reality.

A television station in Brazil released a story in December 2013 about a MSC cruise ship dumping garbage bags into the sea off of the coast of Brazil. The story is based on a cruise passenger’s account. You can see what appears to be black bags being thrown out of the ship from a lower deck. The ship had sailed from Italy and the dumping seems to have occurred after the ship made its transatlantic voyage and before it arrived in Brazil.

A news article from Brazil states that the disposal was close to the natural sanctuary of Fernando de Noronha, off the coast of Pernambuco. Here’s the translation:

A passenger on the MSC cruise, which left Genoa, Italy, captured on video the moment official liner trash bags dumped at sea. According to international standards, the waste of these vessels should be treated and separated before being dispensed.

According to the passenger, businessman Sergio de Oliveira, the staff of the ship began to throw the trash bags in the sea when the ship entered the Brazilian coast. The man also claims that one of the sites chosen for the drop was close to the natural sanctuary of Fernando de Noronha, off the coast of Pernambuco. The businessman lodged the complaint to the prosecutor in Apucarana.

See for yourself… The video is in Portuguese but the image speaks for itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F9cxZXlP5xY

So in summary, it is all well and good having robust policies in place to protect the environment but these policies are only as good as those who carry them out and those who enforce them.

I am sure that if this is happening on MSC it will be happening on other cruise lines too.

Is it not time that the Cruise companies took another step back to see what in reality is happening on their ships? Stop hiding behind policies and environmental gestures and get it right. Every time, all of the time.

turtle_eating_plastic_bags seal with a can

or

dolphin

5 Comments on “Clean up your act!

  1. With havin so much content and articles do you ever run into any problems of plagorism or copyright violation? My blog has a lot of completely unique content I’ve either created myself or outsourced but it looks like a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my agreement. Do you know any solutions to help protect against content from being stolen? I’d truly appreciate it.

  2. I just want to say I’m all new to blogs and really loved you’re web page. Likely I’m likely to bookmark your blog . You surely have really good stories. With thanks for sharing your blog.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


About Me

I have worked in the Travel Industry for 33 years, ever since leaving school. My Dad was in the Navy so I guess I get my wanderlust from him. I was a Manager in a successful Travel Agency for 16 years before joining Cruise.co.uk. I am married and have a son who…

Read more
Thank you for subscribing!