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2006-04-27 17:17:29
CRIENGLISH.com
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Designers in charge of building new cruise ships share a common principle with architects who build skyscrapers. That is, to build the biggest things the world has ever seen. Just as hotels and office buildings tower into the skies to achieve international renown, so cruise ships must accommodate more passengers, lounge chairs, and Champagne, and stand taller and weigh more than any liner before them.
With the May holiday approaching, some of you might be planning to take your vacation on one of these gigantic floating wonderlands. But how much environmental damage are you causing while you leisurely sip your complimentary poolside beverage?
Here to give us an ethical assessment of the typical cruise is China Drive Features Correspondent Su Xiaowei.
This year, the cruise industry's latest record-breaker weighs in at a whopping 158,000 gross tons. The Royal Caribbean's "Freedom of the Seas" takes the crown from the previous two year winner, Cunard's Queen Mary II, which weighs 150,000 tons. Keep in mind the Titanic weighed only a mere 46,328 tons. The Freedom of the Seas cruise ship can carry up to 4,370 passengers and there is talk in the industry that the next generation of cruise liners could carry up to 12,000 passengers.
The cruise industry's race to build bigger ships isn't all about the CEOs playing a "my boat's bigger than yours" game with each other. In large part, it is a reflection of the boom in cruise business over the past decade. Simple economics dictates that it is more profitable to carry more passengers on fewer ships. And more people are choosing to take cruise. This year there will be 1.25 million Britons going on cruises - six times more than in 1993. Worldwide, 15 million passengers - 10 million from the US alone - will travel by cruise ship this year. That compares to just half a million in 1970. There are about 300 liners sailing the world's seas, with a 23 additional ships scheduled to join the global fleet over the next four years.
But as passenger numbers grow, so too do concerns about cruising's impact on the environment. Much of the protest against the cruise industry originates in the US, the biggest market. Campaign groups such as the Bluewater Network have been persistent in their attempts to get the industry to act more responsibly, in particular when it comes to waste emissions. The group claims that a typical cruise ship on a week-long voyage generates more than 50 tons of garbage, 210,000 gallons of sewage, 35,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water and one million gallons of greywater - waste water from sinks, showers, galleys and laundry facilities. Most of this waste, it says, is dumped - some treated, some not - straight into the sea.
The industry points to the fact that the situation is fast improving as environmental laws get tighter. It is true that since August 2005 the International Maritime Organization, the UN body that sets shipping standards, has demanded that any new ship must not discharge disinfected sewage less than three nautical miles from shore, and untreated sewage must not be discharged less than 12 nautical miles from shore.
Existing ships have until 2010 to meet this standard and install treatment machines. However, it doesn't absolve the firms of the fact that these ships are each still pumping thousands of gallons of waste liquid, treated or not, into the world's oceans, often in sensitive marine environments, such as off the Antarctic coast.
But beyond the environmental concerns lies the issue of just how much a cruise ship truly benefits each port of call. After all, passengers typically have little meaningful interaction in each destination instead spending an average of about an hour buying trinkets before re-boarding. Others argue that cruise ships are the maritime version of gated communities - the world's rich remaining safely fenced off from the poor, even if at great environmental cost.
China Drive is one of CRI's radio programs aired from Monday to Friday. Chinastic picks the most interesting life reports from China Drive. Stay tuned.
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Director: Liu Chi 
