Cruise 101 – Cruise 101 – Part 2- Cruise Ships and Eco-Tourism
By Patrick Peartree, TravelTalkMEDIA 

Aboard the ms Staterdam in the Port of San Diego: Representatives of the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL), together with cruise line officials from Holland America Lines, Inc., recently presented Cruise 101, An Overview of the Issues Facing Cruise Lines Today. One of the major topics addressed was that of the environmental impact of cruise ships on the world’s oceans.

The ICCL represents all of the world’s 16 major cruise lines in setting and promulgating industry security practices and procedures, environmental policies and accessibility standards as well as many other internal regulations.

Presenting for the cruise line industry on environmental impact issues was Capt. L. “Nick” Schowengert, Holland America’s Director of Policy and Plans. According to Schowengert, the cruise line industry has made an absolute commitment to protection of the environment and “…leave nothing behind except a wake.” The industry clearly realizes that it is the environments cruise ships visit – the Bahamas, Mediterranean seaports, and glaciers on the Inside Passage of Alaska – all of which are considered to be highly sensitive, biodiverse areas - that really sell cruises. And few passengers would enjoy seeing, much less knowing, their garbage, or worse, their sewage, was being tossed or flushed straight into the beautiful seas and pristine maritime environments they are paying dearly to see.

Today, it is the stated commitment of the cruise line industry to use state-of-the-art technology  to “…design, construct and operate cruise ships to minimize their impact on the environment and meet or exceed the requirements of applicable treaties, laws, regulations, standards and agreements.” The cruise industry also has a goal of “expanding waste reduction strategies including reuse and recycling to the maximum extent.”

Through the International Maritime Organization, the US and other maritime nations have worked to develop consistent and uniform international conventions and standards that apply to all vessels engaged in international commerce. These include MARPOL (Maritime Pollution) Convention, SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) and numerous national laws and regulations of Flag States and Port States (including the United States). US laws include the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The US Coast Guard enforces both international conventions and domestic laws. In addition, many industry standards have been issued by the ICCL and others.

The industry’s current focus on tourism and sensitive biodiversity zone issues is critical in light of the fact that approximately 70 percent of cruise destinations are in biodiversity hotspots, including the Caribbean, Alaska, the Mediterranean, Mexico, the Panama Canal Zone, and the South Pacific. A preponderance of species diversity is found exclusively within the earth's 25 designated biodiversity hotspots which, when combined, actually cover a very small percentage of the Earth's oceanic surface. Each biodiversity hotspot has already lost much if not the majority of its original species habitat, and the remainder face imminent threat of further destruction.

In response, Holland America claims to have gone to nearly total recycling of all solid wastes on board its ships including implementing such measures as clearly marked recycling bins in every stateroom (since 1993), receptacles in the gift shops reminding passengers to recycle their camera batteries, and designing treatment centers in the belly of the ships for shredding, crushing, packing and storing glass and plastic, paper and metal. The policy of ICCL members is a goal of zero discharge of solid waste products. Everything from used laser printer cartridges to mercury vapor and fluorescent light bulbs to dry-cleaning waste fluids created or used aboard cruise ships is being collected, sorted, treated, bagged, stored and safely offloaded onshore for proper disposal.

There are new policies, processes and procedures onboard all cruise ships for handling everything from oily bilge water to the proper disposal of used and outdated pharmaceuticals as well as  photoshop and printshop waste fluids. Even simple strategies such as encouraging passengers to reuse bath towels and forego daily linen changes are being undertaken.

Onboard sewage treatment and water purification is another complex area that the cruise line industry has trying to get its arms around. Utilizing rapidly changing technological advancements, some ICCL members are field testing wastewater treatment systems that employ cutting-edge systems. Using state-of-the-art filtering and maritime sanitation devices (MSDs), the goal is to treat both gray water (from showers, sinks and dishwashers) and black water (from urinals, toilets and medical sinks) in an attempt to reach effluent discharges that are of high quality and purity even allowing the reclaiming water for re-use in ballast tanks. Recent years have seen the installation of several water treatment prototypes on more than 20 ships at a cost of $50 million USD. Many of these systems, while capable of meeting high standards for treatment, are still in the early stages of application for applied use and include the use of plasma energy, ultra-violet radiation, filtration, heat, biological, chemical brocides, ozone and deoxygenation. These new systems can result in water discharge levels on the ships that are near-drinking water quality.

According to recent company press releases, Holland America Line has a history of embracing new environmental technologies.  Four years ago, at a cost of US$2.5 million per ship, the company installed a revolutionary wastewater treatment process aboard six ships to purify sewage, sink and shower water to near-drinking water quality. 

Sometimes, embracing these new technologies proves difficult. Because ships constantly move dynamically, some types of wastewater treatment and processing are very difficult to achieve and effective land-based technology must occasionally be radically altered for the same basic processes to work onboard. Retrofitting the behemoths for new technology can be prohibitively expensive. Another challenge is the many environmental regulations and laws that vary by jurisdiction and that may change rapidly based on the variety of locations that cruise ships may visit on a single trip.

To reduce emissions, ship are being retrofitted with exhaust scrubbers in their smokestacks, gas turbines are being installed in new ships, and alternative power sources are being considered.

Perhaps we will see a nuclear-powered cruise ship in the not so distant future.

Patrick Peartree is Corporate Counsel and Executive VP of Business Development for TravelTalkMEDIA, a division of CelestiaLINK, LLC.