pollution

[tyler]

why do the cruise ship continue to pollute the ocean. they say that they care about the ocean and want to protect it but then they admit that thay discharge gray water into the ocean(when at least 12 miles from shore). if they can purify water that they intake every day then why are they not able to clean the water before discharging it into the ocean?
i really love cruising but am very upset at them for not protecting the waters that they make their money from. the ships that they are building today are huge. the situation is only going to become worse unless we demand that they clean up their act.

[norm]

Tyler,

Your post begins with a fallacious assumption that "grey water" is pollution. In fact, "grey water" is environmentally harmless -- which is why it's still legal to discharge it. The "grey" in the water comes from dirt, perhaps occasional food particles if it's from the galley, and a little soap. The dirt is naturally present in the environment, and therefore obviously is not going to cause any harm. The food particles and soap are biodegradable organic material, and algae in the ocean actually feed off of this stuff -- thus ensuring that it does not last very long.

Neither I nor any other responsible person will defend practices that are harmful to either the environment or any local ecosystem. On the other side of the coin, though, there are too many environmental zealots who charge ahead madly on the assumption that everything is harmful and must be stopped without bothering to do their homework and learn what really is harmful. Altogether too often, honest scientific investigation shows that their efforts are seriously misguided.

Norm.

[Dave M]

I live in florida & i can tell you that many local sewage plants along any coastline also have real big pipes that go into the ocean. they just pump the sewage a few miles off the coast and the tides just take it away.

as for ships, i know that they take all of the food that is not eaten and they grind it up and dump it and they are feeding the fish. as for trash - there are laws against it, but about 5 years ago my brother was on the deck around 2 am and looked down and actually saw crew members of a ship actually throwing trashbags into the ocean from some door on the side of the ship. we never found out what was going on, but THAT is much different from the frey water that you referred to.

Dave