Cruise ship pollution

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Cruise ships generate sewage, greywater, hazardous wastes, oily bilge water, ballast water, solid , and air pollutants. If released without proper treatment, these wastes can put pathogens, unneeded nutrients that upset ecological balance, and toxic substances into the environment that could threaten human health and aquatic life.

Cruise ships represent a small portion of the international Wikipedia:shipping industry, and the waste streams described here are not unique to them. But cruise ships and their passengers and large crews generate more than average amounts of sewage, greywater, and solid waste. They may also have an outsized effect on the subset of ports and coastal areas that see much cruise-ship activity.

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Cruise ship haze over Juneau, Alaska

Blackwater

See also: Wikipedia:Blackwater (waste)

The cruise line industry dumps 255,000 gallons of greywater and 30,000 gallons of blackwater into the sea every day. Blackwater is sewage, Wikipedia:wastewater from toilets (WP) and medical facilities, which can contain harmful Wikipedia:bacteria, pathogens, Wikipedia:viruses, Wikipedia:intestinal parasites, and harmful nutrients. Discharges of untreated or inadequately treated sewage can cause bacterial and viral contamination of fisheries and Wikipedia:shellfish beds, producing risks to public health. Nutrients in sewage, such as Wikipedia:nitrogen and Wikipedia:phosphorus, promote excessive Wikipedia:algal blooms, which consumes Wikipedia:oxygen in the water and can lead to Wikipedia:fish kills and destruction of other aquatic life. A large cruise ship (3,000 passengers and crew) generates an estimated 55,000 to 110,000 Wikipedia:liters per day of blackwater waste.

Due to the environmental impact of shipping, and sewage in particular marpol annex IV was brought into force September 2003 strictly limiting untreated waste discharge. Modern cruise ships are most commonly installed with a Wikipedia:membrane bioreactor type treatment plant for all blackwater and greywater, such as Zenon or Rochem which produce near drinkable quality effluent to be re-used in the machinery spaces as technical water.

Greywater

See also: Wikipedia:Greywater

Greywater is wastewater from the Wikipedia:sinks, Wikipedia:showers, galleys, Wikipedia:laundry, and cleaning activities aboard a ship. It can contain a variety of pollutant substances, including Wikipedia:fecal coliforms, Wikipedia:detergents, Wikipedia:oil and grease, Wikipedia:metals, Wikipedia:organic compounds, Wikipedia:petroleum Wikipedia:hydrocarbons, nutrients, Wikipedia:food waste, medical and dental waste. Sampling done by the EPA and the state of Alaska found that untreated greywater from cruise ships can contain pollutants at variable strengths and that it can contain levels of fecal coliform bacteria several times greater than is typically found in untreated domestic wastewater. Greywater has potential to cause adverse environmental effects because of concentrations of nutrients and other oxygen-demanding materials, in particular. Greywater is typically the largest source of liquid waste generated by cruise ships (90%-95% of the total). Estimates of greywater range from 110 to 320 liters per day per person, or 330,000 to 960,000 million liters per day for a 3,000-person cruise ship.

Solid waste

Solid waste generated on a ship includes Wikipedia:glass, Wikipedia:paper, cardboard, aluminium (WP) and Wikipedia:steel cans, and Wikipedia:plastics. It can be either non-hazardous or hazardous in nature. Solid waste that enters the ocean may become Wikipedia:marine debris, and can then pose a threat to marine organisms, humans, coastal communities, and industries that utilize marine waters. Cruise ships typically manage solid waste by a combination of Wikipedia:source reduction, Wikipedia:waste minimisation, and Wikipedia:recycling. However, as much as 75% of solid waste is incinerated on board, and the ash typically is discharged at sea, although some is landed ashore for disposal or recycling. Wikipedia:Marine mammals, fish, Wikipedia:sea turtles, and birds can be injured or killed from entanglement with plastics and other solid waste that may be released or disposed off of cruise ships. On average, each cruise ship passenger generates at least two pounds of non-hazardous solid waste per day. With large cruise ships carrying several thousand passengers, the amount of waste generated in a day can be massive. For a large cruise ship, about 8 Wikipedia:tons of solid waste are generated during a one-week cruise. It has been estimated that 24% of the solid waste generated by vessels worldwide (by weight) comes from cruise ships. Most cruise ship garbage is treated on board (incinerated, pulped, or ground up) for discharge overboard. When garbage must be off-loaded (for example, because glass and aluminium cannot be incinerated), cruise ships can put a strain on port reception facilities, which are rarely adequate to the task of serving a large passenger vessel.

Hazardous waste

Cruise ships produce hazardous wastes from a number of on-board activities and processes, including Wikipedia:photographic processing, Wikipedia:dry cleaning, and equipment cleaning. Types of waste include discarded and expired chemicals, medical waste, batteries, fluorescent lights, and spent Wikipedia:paints and thinners, among others. These materials contain a wide range of substances such as Wikipedia:hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons, Wikipedia:heavy metals, paint waste, Wikipedia:solvents, fluorescent and mercury vapor light bulbs, various types of batteries, and unused or outdated pharmaceuticals. Although the quantities of hazardous waste generated on cruise ships are small, their Wikipedia:toxicity to sensitive marine organisms can be significant. Without careful management, these wastes can find their way into greywater, bilge water, or the solid waste

Bilge water

On a ship, oil often leaks from Wikipedia:engine and Wikipedia:machinery spaces or from engine maintenance activities and mixes with water in the Wikipedia:bilge, the lowest part of the hull of the ship. Oil, gasoline/petrol (WP), and Wikipedia:by-products from the biological breakdown of petroleum products can harm fish and Wikipedia:wildlife and pose threats to human health if ingested. Oil in even minute concentrations can kill fish or have various sub-lethal chronic effects. Bilge water also may contain solid wastes and pollutants containing high amounts of oxygen-demanding material, oil and other chemicals. A typical large cruise ship will generate an average of 8 metric tons of oily bilge water for each 24 hours of operation. To maintain ship stability and eliminate potentially hazardous conditions from oil Wikipedia:vapors in these areas, the bilge spaces need to be flushed and periodically pumped dry. However, before a bilge can be cleared out and the water discharged, the oil that has been accumulated needs to be extracted from the bilge water, after which the extracted oil can be reused, incinerated, and/or offloaded in port. If a separator, which is normally used to extract the oil, is faulty or is deliberately bypassed, untreated oily bilge water could be discharged directly into the ocean, where it can damage marine life. A number of cruise lines have been charged with environmental violations related to this issue in recent years.

Ballast water

Ballast water is often taken on in one region and discharged in another, and often contains non-native, nuisance, exotic species that can cause extensive ecological and economic damage to Wikipedia:aquatic ecosystems. Ballast water discharges are believed to be the leading source of Wikipedia:invasive species in U.S. marine waters, thus posing public health and environmental risks, as well as significant economic cost to industries such as water and power utilities, commercial and recreational fisheries, agriculture (WP), and Wikipedia:tourism. These problems are not limited to cruise ships, but there is little cruise-industry specific data on the issue, and further study is needed to determine cruise ships’ role in the overall problem of introduction of non-native species by vessels.

Air pollution

Wikipedia:Air pollution from cruise ships is generated by Wikipedia:diesel engines that burn high Wikipedia:sulfur content Wikipedia:fuel oil, also known as bunker oil, producing Wikipedia:sulfur dioxide, Wikipedia:nitrogen oxide and particulate, in addition to Wikipedia:carbon monoxide, Wikipedia:carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbons. Diesel exhaust has been classified by EPA as a likely human Wikipedia:carcinogen. EPA recognizes that these emissions from marine diesel engines contribute to Wikipedia:ozone and carbon monoxide nonattainment (i.e., failure to meet Wikipedia:air quality standards), as well as adverse health effects associated with ambient concentrations of particulate matter and visibility, Wikipedia:haze, acid deposition, and Wikipedia:eutrophication and Wikipedia:nitrification of water. EPA estimates that large marine diesel engines accounted for about 1.6% of mobile source nitrogen oxide emissions and 2.8% of mobile source particulate emissions in the United States in 2000. Contributions of marine diesel engines can be higher on a port-specific basis. Wikipedia:Ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) (also spelled “sulphur”) is a term used to describe a standard for defining Wikipedia:diesel fuel with substantially lowered Wikipedia:sulfur contents. As of 2006, almost all of the petroleum-based diesel fuel available in Europe and North America is of a ULSD type.

One source of environmental pressures on maritime vessels recently has come from states and localities, as they assess the contribution of commercial marine vessels to regional air quality problems when ships are docked in port. For instance, large marine diesel engines are believed to contribute 7% of mobile source nitrogen oxide emissions in Baton Rouge/New Orleans. Ships can also have a significant impact in areas without large commercial ports: they contribute about 37% of total area nitrogen oxide emissions in the Santa Barbara area, and that percentage is expected to increase to 61% by the year 2015. Again, there is little cruise-industry specific data on this issue. They comprise only a small fraction of the world shipping fleet, but cruise ship emissions may exert significant impacts on a local scale in specific coastal areas that are visited repeatedly. Shipboard incinerators also burn large volumes of garbage, plastics, and other waste, producing ash that must be disposed of. Incinerators may release toxic emissions as well.

In 2005 Wikipedia:MARPOL Annex VI came into force to combat this problem. As such cruise ships now employ cctv monitoring on the smoke stacks as well as recorded measuring via opacity meter with some also using clean burning gas turbines for electrical loads and propulsion in sensitive areas.

See also

• Ecological impact of ballast water discharge
• Wikipedia:Marine Environmental Protection
• Wikipedia:Ballast water discharge and the environment

References

This article is based on a public domain Congressional Research Service report: Copeland, Claudia. "Cruise Ship Pollution: Background, Laws and Regulations, and Key Issues" (Order Code RL32450). Congressional Research Service (Updated February 6, 2008).