Today, a Royal Caribbean crew member despatched me {a photograph} of the soot-stained deck of the Wonder of the Seas with the next feedback:
“This photo of black soot is taken on open deck of the Wonder of the Seas cruise ship. Working on open deck, I’m exposed to this constantly. At least 2 times a week, even more soot is taking place all over open decks especially on aft areas. Soot is coming on our skin and into some colleagues eyes as it dropping down without any control. It is cleaned by us employees just with water & without any PPE (personal protective equipment). Environmental officers are ignoring health impacts on guests & crew. Especially on crew as we are constantly exposed to this and are concerned with long term effects. Only concern of officers is to have ship appear to be clean; the only problem they see is soot going on guests clothes. I believe this must be solved.”
Faced with this disturbing data, I instantly realized that this crew member had few choices to resolve the worker’s predicament of working below such hazardous circumstances. If the crew member articulated his issues to a supervisor, the ship worker confronted the probably prospect of being ignored with a definite likelihood of being punished or, at a minimal, merely instructed to do the job or stop and go dwelling.
Of course, I readily agreed to maintain the crew member’s identification nameless, failing which the worker would definitely be fired. I posted the picture on our Cruise Law Twitter feed. One environmentally conscious Twitter person which I observe, Seattle Cruise Control, retweeted my posting and added the truth that:
“Particulate matter is the #1 cause of environmental-related early death. Passengers, crew, & port communities are all exposed to this & other toxins/carcinogens.”
In May of final yr, I posted an article concerning the Wonder of the Seas arriving in Palma de Mallorca billowing a assume cloud of black smoke from its stacks. The actuality of this mega cruise ship belching out an enormous plume of smoke over the Mediterranean port contrasted sharply with Royal Caribbean’s over-the-top advertising and marketing of the biggest cruise ship on the planet, which it touts because the “World’s Newest Wonder” containing two “advanced emission purification systems” which allegedly “remove 98% of sulfur emissions.”
A lot of residents joined in retweeting the images of the large polluting cruise ship, with feedback similar to “The largest cruise ship on the planet arrives. The first thing it does is release a toxic cloud on Palma. They pollute, overcrowd, reduce health and pay tribute to tax havens . . . ”
The native newspaper, Diario de Mallorca, chronicled the protest in an article titled: The Megacruise ‘Wonder of the Seas’ in Palma: They Denounce the “Cloud of Toxic Smoke” Over the City. The newspaper reported that The Wonder of the Seas belongs to the most recent technology of cruise ships that is characterised by its “gigantism.” It measures 64 meters broad by 362 meters lengthy, a tonnage of 230,000 tons and might accommodate over 9,000 folks (6,988 visitors and a crew of two,3000.
Cruise ships are a significant supply of air air pollution which causes and/or contributes to a variety of great well being issues similar to respiratory illnesses, lung illness, most cancers and untimely deaths. The pollution from ship engines exhaust gases embody sulfur oxides (SOx) in addition to non-combustible particulate matter and black carbon.
Heavy gas oil (HFO), typically known as bunker gas, has traditionally been a low price favourite of cruise ships. HFO has tar-like consistency which ends up from the residue of crude oil distillation. HFO is contaminated with a number of completely different compounds together with sulfur and nitrogen, which makes HFO emissions much more poisonous in comparison with low sulfur fuels.
Bunker gas can’t be used with out incombustible particles flying in every single place – not in contrast to burning a tire – with the residue burrowing deep into the mucous membranes of your lungs. It needs to be thought-about to be a public nuisance and banned as such. No one studying this text would burn bunker gas of their home, or topic their neighbors to this poisonous pollutant. Bunker gas is the nastiest and most poisonous gas you need to use. But this gas is the cornerstone of the cruise trade.
The smoke billowing from the Wonder of the Seas seems not in contrast to the air pollution we’ve got seen from different massive cruise ships, just like the Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas, which was videotaped in 2019 belching smoke whereas leaving the port of St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.
This is clearly not only a drawback with Royal Caribbean large ships just like the Wonder of the Seas. Over the years we’ve got obtained a good quantity of complaints from cruise passengers on different manufacturers who level out that they’ve realized to not place towels or clothes on their balconies on the aft of the ship due to stains from soot from the ships’ stacks.
Crew members in fact don’t have the luxurious of closing balcony doorways and selecting to steer clear of the air pollution. Ship staff should be geared up with acceptable private protecting gear (masks/ respirators, googles and gloves) if they’re ordered to be concerned in cleansing up the continual poisonous emissions overlaying the decks of those monster, polluting ships.
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Image credit score: Wonder of the Seas – from the Noticaribe Facebook web page)