Video from group n° 033
Welcome to the webpage of group 033[modifier | modifier le wikicode]
The topic we have decided to explore is the following :
The pollution by cruise ships. We focused on how they handle the waste created by their high number of passenger. Indeed, we noticed that liquid waste if often thrown in the sea and that some cruise ships do not sort their waste.
Our video[modifier | modifier le wikicode]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MXpWj6eHuQ&feature=youtu.be
Our paper[modifier | modifier le wikicode]
Mass tourism is getting more and more important, and this also concerns the sea tourism. Therefore, the number of cruise tourists has risen from 7.6%, which lead to a growing number of cruise boats in the sea (everyday, 300 cruise ships are navigating), and also to a growing quantity of waste generated by these boats. This phenomenon is planned to grow: it is estimated that at the end of the 21st century, there will be about 13 million passengers just in Europe.
The market of cruise ships is on the rise and it seems important to adress this new issue, the management of cruise ships’ waste. Actually, what is first surprising is that cruise ships are free to do what they want in terms of waste because the waste monitoring program of the Clean Water Act is not applied on cruise ships.
We can not deny that implementation exists. Close to coasts, cruise ships have to respect the laws about water waste such as pound and disinfect them. Nevertheless, more than 12 nautical miles away from coasts, implementation no longer exist. Therefore, boats can freely dispose of their water waste.
The European Directive 2000/59/CE enforces to all the maritime ports to:
• permit to the ports’ users to dispose of adapted installations to receive their waste
• organize and plan the reception of those waste,
• make mandatory to use those installations, on pain of a fine, that can be up to 40,000 euros
• put in place a financing system based on the polluter-pay principle.
A cruise boat is a floating city and as every city, it is a big pollution creator.
A cruise boat can produce until 120.000 used water liters per day. Cruise boats can throw their liquid waste at 5 kilometers from the coasts. Gray water constitutes the most important category of liquid waste in cruise boats (laundry, showers, baths, and washbasins). It is estimated that gray water production per person is ranged between 30 to 85 gallons a day. Also, 28.000 liters of bilge oil are produced per day.
It is estimated that half of cruise boats throw their liquid waste in the sea. According to the WWF, about 350 cruise ships navigated in the Baltic sea, rejecting 18 tons of phosphor and 74 tons of nitrogen in the water.
Therefore, both water and air are contaminated by these boats and because of sea winds, and this also pollutes coasts.
It is relevant to notice that some equipments already exist in order to eliminate waste water for example in Helsinki. Some boats sort their waste by category (for example the company MSC is the best at waste sorting). However, according to Vanessa Kloetzer, expert in WWF, even if this service is free, it seems to be easier and faster for cruise ships to discharge them into the ocean.
One of the possible solution could be this innovation; “The Seabin Project”. It has been invented by two Australian and the main aim is to clean oceans with an automated bin, which would be on the water and would retrieve scap. Today the project is still at the step of crowdfunding but it could be a first step to know how to recycle, how to manage and how to retrieve waste from cruise ships for instance and to have clean oceans.
