Cruise industry should feel ashamed over a report card on their effect on the environment
CRUISE lines generate heated opinions, mostly centering on images of floating profit machines fueled by a certain type of passenger eager to add to their credit card bill. As one cynic noted, ships are having to be built bigger just to stand the weight of the debts run up on board.
Regardless of the types of passenger, there is universal uneasiness about the environmental effects of the vessels. Just west of Hawaii is the Great Garbage Dump of the sea, known to be at least the size of Texas but reckoned by some to be as big as the continental US (3 million square miles). Rumors abound that some cruise ships on the Pacific route surreptitiously add to the filth, (mostly created by cargo ships) by traveling through the patch at the dead of night to dump their garbage.
Little is said publicly about pollution from "happy ships", possibly because of the money involved. Friends of the Earth has upset that apple cart with a report card on 10 major lines. The best (Holland America) earns a B and the worst (Disney and Royal Caribbean) get Fs. The report covers water-quality rules compliance (although only in Alaskan waters), sewage treatment and air pollution.
Some would accuse the report of being too timid, by zeroing in on Alaska for water quality and limiting the air pollution assessment to the use of shoreside power (cold ironing), which is more widely available on the West Coast, while leaving out pollution under steam.
Nonetheless, the results are pretty damning, particularly for Disney. Its sewage treatment systems are outdated, even though the line was only set up in the 1990s.
Reactions from the lines are pretty damning, too. Instead of standing up to admit they will have to improve, they indulge in a very un-American habit of complaining that they can't do anything more and that it's not their fault.
According to the industry voice, the Cruise Lines International Association, the report is flawed and ignores "the fact that our cruise lines comply with and in most cases exceed all applicable environmental regulations. It is regrettable that Friends of the Earth authors such misinformation when in fact this industry has made tremendous progress in the past several years in advancing technology and developing programs that go a long way in protecting the environment."
Which misses the whole point–that the industry does pollute.
An inevitable comparison will be made with tobacco, which came out with the same sort of defense. The fact is, pollution is bad for the planet. One company executive even went as far as saying "it's not for nothing that Friends of the Earth's initials are FOE, because that is what we see them as."
Disney should be especially ashamed as it caters to families and knows that the way to learn good – and bad – behavior is during childhood.
If FOE gets around to blowing the whistle on the Great Garbage Dump, the industry's reaction will be something to behold.