What Steps Could Cruise Ships Take To Become More Sustainable?

For some time now cruise ships have been targeted for the damage that they are doing to the environment. The Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, who are based in Germany, reported that a single cruise ship emits the same amount of pollution that 5 million cars would emit if they were travelling the same distance. Another report by Friends of The Earth has drawn attention to some astonishing figures about how much waste cruise ships generate. For example in a single journey 210,000 gallons of human sewage is dumped into the ocean. They also highlighted that cruise ships also burn what is probably the most harmful and dirtiest fuel there is, which certainly isn’t doing any good to the environment.

Cruise ship by Pete Markham

However up until recently the cruise industry didn’t really pay any attention to these reports, which as a result meant that cruise ships are still extremely harmful to the environment. But over the past few years ecotourism has become increasingly popular. How environmentally friendly a holiday is, is now becoming a larger factor for people deciding what they want to do for their holiday. As a result the cruise industry has finally began to make some changes in order to become more sustainable.

But what steps can/are cruise ships taking in order to become more sustainable?

Modify The Engine

Some cruise lines, such as Holland America and Princess Cruises, have modified the engines on some of their ships so that they can use onshore Hydroelectric power stations whilst they are at ports. This step is a little technical but it does mean that they can use a cleaner source of energy for the time that they stay at a port.

Order An Appropriate Amount Of Food

Each day, thousands of meals are served onboard a cruise ship. All the leftover food is thrown away, usually straight into the sea. Cruise ships could plan more carefully how much food they will actually need in order to reduce the amount of food being thrown away. Some cruise lines for example Windstar Cruises have already begun to do this.

Alter Cruising Speeds

This is an extremely simple step that cruise ships could make. Just by lowering the cruising speed by a few knots-per-hour a lot of fuel can be saved. This is both good for the environment as less harmful gases are released into the atmosphere, and good for the cruise line as they can save money from reduced fuel costs.

Install Underfloor Heating

Heating doesn’t come cheap onboard a cruise ship as there are a lot of people who need keeping warm. Installing underfloor heating instead of using a traditional central heating system would be much more sustainable. This is because it would use far less fuel, it would be more effective as less heat would be lost and it could be setup to only turn on when people are present in a room.

Process Their Own Waste

Most cruise ships simply eject their waste directly into the ocean. This isn’t the only solution to the problem of waste on board. It is possible for cruise ships to process their own waste meaning that nothing has to be dumped into the ocean.

Install Low Flow Water Systems

The Friends of the Earth report stated that 1 million gallons of water were wasted on cruise ships from sinks, baths, toilets and showers. By installing low flow water systems for all of these a large amount of water can be saved. These systems work by releasing less water when they are used. The amount won’t be noticeable to passengers and installing them would make a huge difference.

All of these suggestions are things that cruise lines could easily do. Implementing them would be better for the environment and better for the cruise lines themselves as it would save them a lot of money. As ecotourism becomes even more popular it is likely that we are going to see a lot of these changes being made onboard cruise ships.

Guest post by contributing author Linda, writing on behalf of UFH1 in this instance. For more information on underfloor heating, visit their website!

Tags: 5 million, biodiversity conservation, conservation union, cruise industry, cruise lines, cruise ship, cruise ships, friends of the earth, holland america, human sewage, hydroelectric power stations, journey, leftover food, markham, million cars, pollution, ports, princess cruises, sea cruise, source of energy

Category: Travel Tips