Cruise Ship Garbage

[Teacher Terry]

This was our 6th cruise and it suddenly hit me how much waste is generated. Each cabin gets at least 5 pieces of paper daily of which one is useful since it has the daily events. The rest are things like trying to get you to come to a art auction, etc. The food waste bothers me also because since it’s free people just throw it away and get something else. We love cruising and have so much fun and I cannot believe it took me this long to notice. Not sure if they recycle or not. Anything that you were blind to even though it’s obvious?

[Simplemind]

We used to love cruising when my husband could tolerate it pre stroke. It always bothered me that many things were excessive and disposable. I felt in many cases it attracted a certain type of traveler (obnoxious) that I didn't want to be around.

[flowerseverywhere]

Do you really trust cruise ships not to dump raw sewage and other garbage way out in the middle of nowhere during the dark of night? I don’t.

[Teacher Terry]

SM, since the stroke do all the people bother him now on the cruise? We have met some really nice people that we end up hanging out with on cruises. We like that all the activities, food, etc are in one place and love being on the ocean. I noticed that they mostly use glasses versus plastic to serve drinks. I suppose it probably doesn’t vary that much from the waste a hotel makes.

[Simplemind]

TT, no it isn't the people that bother him, it is the motion. We have always met some very nice people on cruises during the dining hours and meeting up again on some of the land tours. My husband also loved being on the ocean and is so disappointed that he had such a hard time on the last one. In my honest opinion I believe he had another mini stroke because it took him months to recover as opposed to the days we expected. At any rate... some people become obnoxious when they believe they have paid to be waited on hand and foot. I have actually found it very different depending on where the cruise is leaving from. California... embarrassing. Texas…. for the most part very polite. I hate to see staff being mistreated and I have witnessed a lot of it.

[Teacher Terry]

That’s sad that the motion bothers him. We have only met a few obnoxious people no matter where the cruise leaves from. The workers always go beyond so we tip them extra at the end. We have taken 5 so far.

[jp1]

Recently youtube suggested to me some "behind the scenes" videos posted by cruise ship employees. I learned enough to know that I probably don't want to work on a cruise ship. But this thread caused me to go back to youtube and look up cruise ship garbage and see what I could find. And I found this video of a news report about Princess Cruise Lines being fined $40M for dumping waste into the ocean. Another video I found claimed that the excess food waste that TT mentions gets pulverized and dumped into the water as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEqwO4U0tEo

And this video summarizes a Friends of the Earth study about cruise industry practices regarding waste. (TLDR version: not good)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnihqVWds3I