Do Cruise Ships Dump Their Sewage In The Ocean

It is perfectly legal for cruise ships to dump treated sewage in the ocean as long as they are three miles offshore.

Do cruise ships dump their sewage in the ocean. It is also legal for the cruise industry to dump raw untreated sewage in the ocean once a ship is more than three miles from the US. But beyond that point its essentially a. Federal law requires that cruise ships only dump treated wastewater if they are within three nautical miles of shore.

A general belief is that these enormous boats simply dump raw sewage and other pollutants straight into the oceans. Law allows cruise ships to dump raw sewage in the ocean once a ship is more than three miles off US. It is perfectly legal for cruise ships to dump treated sewage in the ocean as long as they are three miles offshore.

A common misconception is that once a ship is out in the open ocean they dump human waste into the water. All cruise ship sewage goes through what is called sewage treatment where solid and liquid waste is separated and sterilized then the solid is incinerated and the liquid is released back into the ocean. The EPA estimates that single 3000-person cruise ship pumps 150000 gallons of sewageabout 10 backyard swimming pools worthinto the ocean per week.

When factoring in all types of boats this total figure could be as high as 1 billion gallons per year. This means the ship can deal with their own waste ranging all the way from recycling to water filtration. You are right eventually it is dumped into the ocean but within international IMO national guidelines.

These floating resorts dump over a. Yes you read that correctly Most cruise ships are equipped with a modern wastewater management system onboard complete with engineers who monitor the treatment of waste that goes down the drains and toilets on the ship. Cruise ships do not dump raw sewage - they do release treated waste when sufficiently far off shore.

When it comes to handling treatment and disposal of sewage on the ship. I am reasonably certain that large fish and mammal sewage dump a whole lot of poop per animal. In fact according to the latest Cruise Ship Report Card by Friends of the Earth they might be about the worst.