Cruise Ships

The Problem

A typical cruise ship today carries around 2,000 passengers and 900 crew.

Essentially, these ships act floating towns producing similar amounts of waste and sewage. According to our friends at Oceana, an average cruise ship will produce 25,000 gallons of human waste and 143,000 gallons of grey water a day!

There are in excess of 200 cruise ships carrying 10 million passengers to ports around the globe each year, with the industry showing an 8.4% growth over the last two decades. Cruises have become a lot more affordable and increasing leisure time means they are becoming an annual fixture in the holiday plans of millions of people.

Considering these facts, it is easy to see that the amount of waste produced by the industry each day is huge.

So what happens to this waste? Unlike a town of similar population discharging into a river or estuary (which according to the Urban Waste Water Directive had to have at least secondary treatment by the end of 2005), a cruise ships can legally dump their raw sewage when only 3 miles offshore. When within 3 miles of the shore, ships are supposed to have a marine sanitation device (MSD) to treat their waste but are not required to ensure that it is functioning correctly! According to Oceana, effluents from MSDs typically fail to meet designed standards.

Ships also do not need to log, track or monitor such discharges.

Raw sewage from cruise ships is similar to standard sewage from the land. It contains bacteria and viruses hazardous to humans, can reduce the oxygen levels in the water, can cloud water preventing light reaching the sea bed (essential for most coral growth) and can introduce harmful levels of nutrients to the environment which could lead to potentially toxic algal blooms.

Grey water from the cruise ships is subject to no legislation at all. A ship can legally dump grey water (which can contain bleach, detergents from dry cleaning, toxic chemicals from photo processing and other harmful substances) pretty much anywhere they wish (apart from in Alaskan waters and in the Great Lakes of the USA who have introduced special legislation).

And it's not just all about sewage and grey water! A typical cruise ship includes approximately 4,000 gallons of oily bilge water each day.

Even with this lax legislation, fines for pollution incidents from cruise ships are very uncommon? Its time to stop ships abusing while cruising!

The Solution

On the 1st of August 2005, new legislation(MARPOL Annex IV) came into force requiring all new cruise ships to be fitted with either a sewage treatment plant, a sewage comminuting and disinfecting system or a sewage holding tank. Existing ships will have until 2010 to fit the same. Discharge from a sewage treatment plant or disinfected effluent will be allowed when more than 3 miles from land. Raw sewage will still be allowed but only when more than 12 miles from land.

While this is a step in the right direction, SAS feel that this does not go far enough. We feel that it is essential for all cruise ships to use full UV treatment to produce an effluent that is ultra clean before it is discharged into the marine environment. Advance wastewater and sewage treatment systems are already available and being used by a select few cruise ships. With technology readily available and being used, there is no excuse for a multi million pound industry to not invest in a full treatment facility to protect the water environment from sewage pollution.

A shining example of such a cruise ship is the World, which has a full UV treatment plant on board.

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