Garbage Dumping

The topic I wanted to look at for this posting is the garbage dumping done by cruise ships. If you take a took at the average cruise ship which can carry about 4500 passengers, which averages out to about 600,000 people a year (these stats have been taken from cruises that travel through the Alaskan passage). That equals out to over a million gallons of wastewater been dumped into the Alaskan waters every year by these ships. Over the years many major cruise lines have been fined for various types of pollution infractions. They include falsifying records, installing illegal bypasses on the ships, dumping of oil sewage, garbage, and hazardous toxins. (http://www.eco-pros.com/humanimpact.htm).

Currently it is cheaper for cruise ships to take the risk of dumping their waste into the oceans, because most of the times they wont get caught, then to properly dispose of all their waste on the mainland dumps. By falsifying the amount of waste produced they can get away with dumping excessive amounts into the international waters. The fines right now are not a sufficient deterrent. They are very minimal if they actually get caught. Plus with the major cruise lines getting a great deal of business as the trend grows paying these fines are not a major deal. The risk factor is minimal and the benefits for dumping waste heavily outweigh the negatives from a business sense perspective.

This a video I found on youtube not totally focused on the cruise industry but it shows how the ocean has become a dump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNqzAHGXvs&feature=related

I also found some shocking facts of how much waste is produced by person.

“This means that the generation of waste per passenger per day comes to at least 300 litres of greywater, 40 of blackwater, 10 of bilge water, 3.5 kilos of garbage and 30 grams of toxic waste. “

http://na.oceana.org/sites/default/files/o/fileadmin/oceana/uploads/europe/reports/cruise_ships_eng.pdf

My Introduction

The topic of my blog is the environmental issues surrounding the cruise ship industry. To my knowledge cruise vacations are becoming increasing popular and are one of the highest CO2 omitting tourism activities. On top of this many cruse ships are involved in other harmful environmental activities such as illegal garbage dumping into the oceans. The arctic cruise, which is booming in popularity, is another major issue because these areas are more sensitive to direct pollution than tropical areas. With this blog I would like to explore these issues and reflect on the impacts this new tourism trend is having on the environment.

                Since cruises are increasing in demand, these ships are becoming larger and more luxurious. This may seem like a good thing from a tourist perspective but as these ships become larger they produce more waste from their passengers and staff while burn more fossil fuels to function. They release both emissions into the earth’s ozone and oceans.

“Recently, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that, during a one-week voyage, a large cruise ship with capacity for 3,000 passengers and crewmembers can produce around 210,000 gallons (794,850 L) of sewage stream, one million gallons (3.785 million L) of greywater, 25,000 gallons (95,000 L) of oily bilge water, 150 gallons (568 L) of hazardous wastes, 8 tons of solid waste and a difficult-to-calculate quantity of air pollutants, which must be multiplied by the more than 200 cruise ships currently plying the world’s waterways 365 days a year. In fact, it has been suggested that cruise ships constitute about 77% of the marine pollution world wide.” (“The Crusie Industry”, 2011).

          These statistics are shocking and revealing because it brings to light a whole other side of the cruise industry that people do not hear or think about. If more people knew about the massive environmental impact these ships have would less people be willing to take cruises, forcing the cruse industry to adapt to becoming more environmentally friendly? Adding in the theory of peak oil, how long will the cruise industry continue to grow? With the projected amount of easily accessible oil becoming extreme more and more scare, the price of fossil fuel will start to rapidly increase. Either the growth of cruise industry will start to peak because of the affordability to middle class citizens or they will be forced to seek out alternative energy sources.   

The Cruise Industry - Environmental Issues. (n.d.). In Wind Rose Network. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from http://www.windrosenetwork.com/The-Cruise-Industry-Environmental-Issues.html