Cruise ships are an environmental catastrophe

I’ve never wanted to go on a cruise. I fancy myself a ‘traveller’ and cruises scream ‘mass tourism’, promising cheap and easy vacations. Big cruise ships strike me as floating shopping malls with very limited time at each destination. How can you claim to have been somewhere when you were only there for a couple of hours?

Until a few years ago, however, I dismissed cruise ship vacations as a personal preference. My negative reaction was essentially aesthetic. And, really, I asked myself, is there anything wrong with having a cheap and easy vacation? 

Cruise ships are very bad for the environment

Then I started learning about all the serious problems associated with the big cruise ship companies. Now I think the cruise industry is one of the most damaging forces on the planet.

I’m going to outline the negative aspects of cruise ships in two parts. First, I’m going summarize how much cruise ships pollute the environment and accelerate the climate crisis. I’ll deal with some of the other issues with the cruise industry in a later post.

Cruise ships are a catastrophe for the environment. These monster ocean-going vessels create massive amounts of air and water pollution.

Cruise ships burn dirty fuel 

Cruise ships burn cheap and very dirty fuel that spews lots of pollution into the air. These ships use heavy, toxic oil that contains many contaminants. Few cruise ships filter their emissions like cars or trucks. This has implications for the toxins that go into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. It also means that the air on cruise ships is highly polluted, probably worse than the air you breathe near a major highway.

Cruise ships emit more carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre than flying. Most also keep their engines running even when they are in port. Cruise ships emit more than twice the carbon dioxide per person than staying in a hotel. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason for increasing the greenhouse effect that has significantly warmed the earth. Cruise ships are disproportionately responsible for the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather we have experienced and will continue to experience.    

One recent study estimated that cruise ships generate much more black carbon (soot) per ship than container ships, bulk carriers and oil tankers. Black carbon can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular disease. Black carbon is also a major contributor to the climate emergency, especially in colder climates where the soot can reduce the ability of snow to reflect sunlight.

Cruise ships contaminate the ocean 

Cruise ships generate large amounts of water pollution. Some cruise ships use scrubbers that re-route pollution from the air into the water. This contaminated water has been linked to cancer and reproductive dysfunction in marine mammals. Cruise ships are also a source of oil spills.

More directly, cruise ships dump sewage directly into the ocean. The sewage from cruise ships contains chemicals, pharmaceuticals, bacteria, viruses, heavy metals and hazardous waste. In addition, cruise ships dump a considerable amount of food waste into the ocean. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of food waste on cruise ships — estimated at about a third of the food supplied onboard. Human food is not nutritious for fish. Human food also contains pesticides, antibiotics and hormones that are not healthy for marine organisms.

Some jurisdictions have laws that do not allow cruise ships to dump sewage close to shore. In these circumstances, the cruise ships often wait until they are sailing in jurisdictions with less stringent laws to dump their sewage. For example, I live on the Pacific coast of Canada where the cruise ships sailing to Alaska wait until they are in Canadian waters to dump their toxic mix of chemicals and wastewater — using the formerly pristine coastal waters of British Columbia as a toilet.

In general, cruise ships are not allowed to dump garbage directly into the ocean. They are supposed to offload their garbage when the ships are in port. However, there have been many instances of cruise ships being caught for dumping garbage in the ocean.

Final comments

As a final point, some cruise ships may be better than others. I’ve read that the Disney cruise ships, for example, are less harmful than the ships from most other cruise ship companies. Also, I expect that many smaller, more ecologically oriented cruise ships are less polluting than the big, monster vessels.

Have I convinced you that cruise ships are extremely bad for the environment? Do you have anything to add to my summary?