May 19 2009
Major cruise ships will stop dumping sewage in the Baltic Sea if ports will put in place facilities allowing to remove waste, ECC, a cruise-liner organization announced today.
ECC said it would abandon the damaging practice if “adequate port reception facilities which operate under a ‘no special fee’ will be made available.
WWF, which two years ago asked ferry lines and cruise ship companies for a voluntary ban on waste-water discharge, welcomed the decision as a really important step forward.
The Baltic Sea receives more than 350 cruise ship visits with over 2,100 port calls each year. The wastewater produced in these vessels is estimated to contain 113 tons of nitrogen and 38 tons of phosphorus, substances that add to eutrophication of the sea. Until now, most of this sewage has been is discharged into the Baltic Sea.
“We are very happy that the cruise companies have taken this decision,” said Dr. Anita Mäkinen, Head of the Marine Programme at WWF Finland. “The dumping of untreated waste water straight out into the Baltic Sea poses an unnecessary threat to the sensitive nature of the Baltic Sea environment.”
In addition to excess nutrients, the waste water also contains bacteria, viruses and other pathogens, as well as heavy metals
Eutrophication is considered by many the main environmental problem of the Baltic Sea, causing both biological and economic damage to marine environment and coastal areas. It is caused by an overload of nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, into the ecosystem.
It causes many problems, including unusually strong and frequent summertime algae blooms such as the toxic cyanobacteria.
Today there are only three out of more than 20 cruise ships ports around the Baltic Sea, Helsinki, Stockholm and Visby, that meet ECC’s conditions
The normal sewage storage capacity for a cruise ship is between one and three days. This means in praxis that a lot of sewage will still be dumped in the sea.
According to WWF, the announcement is a step in the right direction.
“We see this as a step in the right direction”, says Dr. Anita Mäkinen, Head of the Marine Programme at
“We now call on the cruise lines to work together with us to put pressure on the ports and their owners to establish sufficient port facilities”, says Pauli Merriman, Director of the WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme.
“We consider it to be the responsibility of any country or city that wants to receive these cruise ships, to offer adequate sewage reception facilities.”