Cruise ships are notorious for their environmental impact, with many types of pollution such as water, noise, and air. To address this issue, cruise ship crews clean and sanitize surfaces known for transmitting germs multiple times each day. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on plans to prevent and contain further outbreaks of COVID-19 and other viruses on board cruise ships.
Cruise ships are the only form of travel or transportation that are known for their cleanliness. Cleaning every room individually and completely by rubbing down surfaces and spraying disinfectants, and cordoning each room off so they are not re-infected is essential. Cruise ship cleanliness is comparable to a 3-star hotel on land, but newcomers trickle in through one of two gangways linked to the terminal ashore.
Systems such as scrubbers can reduce air pollution but transfer contaminants to the ocean by releasing hot, acidic, and toxic water. Switching to more efficient and safer cleaning tasks is crucial. Royal Caribbean sought the expertise of KTV Working Drone to find a more efficient and safer approach to cleaning tasks. Many cruise lines are switching to once-daily stateroom cleaning instead of twice-daily.
Perfect cleanliness requires more than a mop and an upright vacuum cleaner. AIDA Cruises, Germany’s leading provider of sea cruises, is well aware of the need for improved sanitation procedures on cruise ships.
📹 The Cleanest & DIRTIEST Cruise Ships in of 2023
Cruise lines need to take cruise ship cleanliness seriously. In fact, all cruise ships are subject to surprise inspections by the CDC’s …
📹 How Waste Is Dealt With On The World’s Largest Cruise Ship
The 6600 passengers on board the world’s largest cruise ship produce a lot of trash. We went inside the secret, crew-only deck of …
I see a huge problem with expressing penalties for businesses only in monetary fines. Their analysts can trim this into a simple cost benefit calculation. “Dumping trash into the ocean has a x% chance of being detected and would roughly cost us x amount of $. Whereas correct recycling would cost y times as much. So we just dump it in the ocean.” No. Penalties must be expressed in actual bans or limitations of operation in an area and/or time frame. This way businesses would have a real incentive to act right.
I was on a Carnival cruise, the Fascination with a balcony suite with my wife of 17 days. We were on our private deck enjoying the moonlight over the horizon and then we hear glass on a steel floor look down over the side of the ship and a little behind us, and there we saw garbage being dumped on the floor and then swept into the ocean by two wide push brooms. We saw wine bottles, plastic containers from the kitchen. When we told the Captain next evening, he said that it never happened. He said the Glass is all ground up to a powder and released out the bottom of the ship. Our eyes DON’T AND DIDN’T LIE TO US.
I used to have to board a Norwegian cruise ship every Saturday for my company to service their gift shop (when they docked). The gift shop used to give me their recyclables every week that the workers went through, which was only around a dollar at most. After a couple months, the checkpoint to board/disembark told me I couldn’t take it off the ship. I couldn’t believe it, as I knew they would just throw it away.
I took one cruise, and was amazed at how hard those folks worked, and at multiple jobs. The wine steward who remembered everyone at our table each evening was out scraping and painting in the mornings. These folks sacrifice by living away from their families to provide for them, and Im sure what money they make per hour worked is shamefully low compared to what they generate the cruise company.
I was living un Buzios, Brasil when a cruise dumped cleaning wastes in the océan. The people at the beach (tartaruga beach, a place full of tourists) ended at the hospital and 2 of them lost sight. If there is an industry I’m quite happy to see struggle is the cruise lines. I’m sorry for the hundred of jobs that will be lost but cruises suck.
When I was a kid, there was a local butcher, he didn’t have a refrigerator, so whenever he has left overs he would just put it in a bag and give the meat to anyone who passes by, he managed to get a ref, he noticed that sometimes the meat ends up rotting when no one buys the meat, he still kept giving the people free meat, I was like 7 or 8 years old, I’m now 23, he never had waste, in the 90’s people were kinder compared to now, they just want money, even if there are leftovers, they’d still rather throw it away than give it to someone else because of payment, we all loved our butcher, he was kind, generous, and quite loveable. Hope he’s doing well.
All I’m thinking about is how many beaches on Long Island, Bahamas (in the Caribbean) that are polluted from cruise ship waste. No matter how many times we clean the beaches, they are polluted again from cruise ships dumping their trash into the ocean and it being washed up onto our beaches a few months later. I’m truly hoping that this system will be incorporated to other Caribbean cruise ship lines, so we can have trash free beaches again one day.
Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line that I trust, they are by far the most transparent and they never seem to have any major issues, if any. I have enjoyed every cruise that I’ve taken with them from a short cruise on Majesty of the Seas to my most recent on Quantum of the seas. They are the only cruise line that I see on documentaries and informative shows like this
Hmmmm…. I couldn’t sleep while on a cruise one night…it was 2:30 am, and I thought I’d take a stroll on deck just to get some fresh air thinking it would help with the insomnia. There was quite a bit of commotion about 6 decks down from me, so I leaned over the railing to see what was going on. I couldn’t believe what I saw – – crew members tossing 30-40 50-gallon trash bags overboard. Man, I was pissed. When I brought it up to a staff member the next morning, he replied that “it was all biodegradable trash.” I told him I’ve never seen a biodegradable plastic trash bag…. you could hear crickets
When I was on a cruise ship after lunch one day I was on the deck toward the back of the boat and this gross ass smell Took over. I looked overboard and it looked like the ship was barfing. Pink chunky water was being dumped into the ocean🤮🤢💩. I’m forever scarred by what I smelled and saw. It was totally nauseating… totally looked like the ship was drunk and was hugging the toilet 🚽 bowl letting go of everything puke 🤮 is made of. The ship left the chunks floating in its wake. Looked like some foul boiling garbage disposal soup 🍲
It is amazing how America can fine ships in the middle of the ocean. It used to be that once you were 500 miles away from the coast of America, American laws no longer applied. Most other countries have the same laws. But, in the 1980s the world decided that they were going to enforce all their laws ANYWHERE in the world, regardless of what the laws were of the country you were in, each country can enforce their country’s laws in the country you are in. This means if you are from an Arab country, and you come to America, and don’t wear the burka, you will be beaten, stoned, or beheaded when you return to your country, and likewise, if you are American and go to a country where drugs are legal and use, say cocaine, you will be arrested when you return to America and charged with the drug crimes from American law. This is a very recent thing. Back during WW2, Korea, Vietnam, right up till the early 90s, American people could do whatever was legal in the country they went to and not have to worry about American laws. Unfortunately, the only group that still enjoys this exemption is the US Military. And it applies to the bases in the US and any properties used to house Servicemen We had a recent case in Philadelphia where off base housing had active prostitution and the city police arrested many servicemen, but were forced to drop all charges when the military told them off base housing is also covered by this exemption from US laws
It’s unfortunate that the common perception of recycling is that everything a consumer places in a blue top recycling bin get’s a brand new life somewhere else. Fact is that “recycling” has become nothing more than an exercise in sorting and ultimately either get’s sold to other countries for landfill or gets burned for energy.
I used to work at a facility in the UK that occasionally dealt with bagged incinerator ash from cruise ships that docked at Southampton. It was strange the stuff we’d find in them. Everything from part burn shoes and carpet, oyster shells, one colleague said he found jewelry once. We treated the ash with waste industrial acid to make both safe and then sent it out to landfill.
Sometimes I think it is a blessing that humans pass away, if no human died no progress would ever be made. New generations are more enviromental aware, while most old folks don’t see a problem with throwing tons of plastics and waste into the ocean. I mean is it really that hard to take care of our environment? It’s not even the case that we throw waste in some distant planet, it is right here in our own home and it even affects us. I will never understand people who have absolutely no regard for nature and the environment.
I was on vacation to Lanzarote once. We booked a boattrip to the south, where the boat was just laying in the water while the people could go snorkling, swimming etc. There was also a buffet available. The buffet was made out of chickenlegs, fries and greens. When you were done eating, people could scoop the leftovers in a trashcan, but we were not allowed to throw those chicken bones away. The staff threw those chicken bones in the sea, because a lot of fish were swimming there. Every time they did that tour, they would stop at the same place. This way they were hoping that the fish would stay in the same place as well. I think this is a great idea. There were thousands of fish in that ocean and the water was so incredibly clear. I think this is really smart.
Perhaps cruise ships could take high salinity water produced from water desalination plants and mix it with the proper amount of treated water to allow that high salinity water to be reintroduced into the ocean in a way that impacts the environment around water desalination plants less. And considering how often these cruise ships operate (excluding now obviously) this could be a decent way to make water desalination less environmentally stressful for coastal ecosystems.
Water fountains are only not allowed in the US. In Europe you can find them mutliple times on every deck. On our last cruise a crew member told us that in US territory they have to dump the complete buffet every 45 or so minutes and have it arranged completely fresh. Regardless of how bad or good the food really is. Crazy US laws 😂
Ive worked on cruise ships for 35 years. And I can say with confidence that food waste on cruises is often grinded, re-seasoned, and made into empanadas and pies. Though you have to remove chicken bones and fish bones because those need to be thrown in the trash. But other leftovers taste as good as new if you season it with enough paprika and spices.
To those who are saying, “Who wouldn’t finish their food on a cruise?” My buddy would order 3 different meals during dinner time on the Symphony, ate half of the first 2, then threw away the 3rd plate without finishing it. When I asked him about it, he just smurked and said, “This is what I came here for, different tastes. We had 4 days, I’m not going to try 1 meal a day throughout all days.” Yep, one of those guys.