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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

Cruise ships have a huge ecological impact everywhere they go. They burn colossal amounts of fuel, they produce lots of toxic exhaust, sewage, etc. A lot of destinations for these things don't exactly have a lot of regulations for any of this either.

Just flying to your destination and staying in some nice place is arguably both better for the environment and probably a lot more enjoyable depending on your tastes. Not that flying is particularly good for the environment of course. Or that enjoyable these days. But I wanted to put in context just how nasty cruise ships can be.

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They produce sewage that would otherwise not have existed?

I assume they mean that sewage at home is treated.

We don't normally dump our sewage straight in the ocean.

No, sometimes it goes directly into Lake Ontario and the river.

    Plans put in place by previous administrations over the years said that by 2038, waste water dumped into the lake would finally be as close to zero.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-storm-water-w...

Nor do cruise ships.

Actually they do. This is all well documented. There have been some failed attempts to change this. But dumping in international waters is cheaper and without (financial) consequences. They dump sewage hundreds of tons of sewage on a typical journey.

Years ago, Key West built enough extra sewage treatment capacity to process sewage from the many cruise ships which visit the city. There was a plan to require all ships to discharge and pay for treatment so that sewage was not dumped 12 miles off-shore, which is only 3 miles past the reef. Captains get a bonus for fuel savings, so they tend to dump as soon as it is legal.

The cruise industry threatened to remove Key West from their list of stops, wrote some checks to the various non-profits, and the status quo was preserved.

The cruise ship industry is an ecological disaster, by choice.

What do you think happens to land-based sewage?

It's treated in huge facilities. We don't just flush it raw into the water

Nor do cruise ships.

I just looked it up, and it does appear that cruise ships now treat their black water instead of just macerating it like they used to. I would love to know: is that all cruise ships, in all areas?

Sure they do. Not every cruise ship does wastewater treatment.

Google MARPOL Annex IV

Ok, I read that and it explains circumstances in which it is ok to discharge raw sewage?

Ahahah the waters of the third world cities like London and Paris invite you for a bath.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

Big economic blocks like the EU and the US should force the cruise ships to operate sustainably and not pollute the literal sh*t out of the port cities they stop at.

"We should properly tax/negate negative externalities" in accordance with microeconomics. It's at the core of basic economics and both conservative and liberal economists would agree with this statement. It's a well studied field. The problem is policy. I often post this, but I really wish microeconomics was a required course in high school or primary. I find it to be one of the least understood of the well-established fields, and one that matters when we get older and vote or debate on these topics.

And the consequence of that would be?

Please elaborate.

Fish and birds poop in the water, all day. It's just fertilizer.

And animals poop in your yard. Do you? It's just fertilizer.

Sewage that would be treated, not pumped raw into the ocean.

Just like on a cruise ship.

> Cruise ships have a huge ecological impact everywhere they go.

The sheer size of these things is hard to comprehend. I'm on vacation at the fancy french riviera and the billionaire's superyachts, when on a bay next to a cruise ship, look like tiny miniature toys. It's just wild. The cruise ships are not just three to five times longer, they're also, way, way, way taller than the superyachts.

You see a cruise ships and it screams "I'm here to destroy the environment".

My wife wanted to try a vacation on a cruise ship but to me it's a big no-no.

It's a boat - is it really worse than flying?

Arguably indeed. You have some support for your emotional claims or it is what it is - emotional claims?

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