Cruise ships are back in Quebec for the first time since the start of the pandemic, with all that this ultra-polluting industry entails in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, waste and pollution.
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The first ship of the cruise season docked at the Port of Quebec yesterday. This is the Viking Octantis, a modest-sized boat with a capacity of 378 passengers, from Norway.
By November 1, a hundred of these liners will visit Quebec bringing more than 100,000 tourists.
As cruises resume around the world with the lifting of health measures, environmental groups point out that it is a highly polluting activity.
Tons of GHGs… even docked
The cruise industry is responsible for 21 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) annually worldwide, according to a study by the Global Sustainable Tourism Dashboard.
Unlike Montreal, the Port of Quebec is not equipped with an electricity supply system. Cruise ships that stop there must therefore leave their engines running continuously for the duration of their stay.
This is not a situation unique to Quebec, however. Around the world, few ports offer this possibility since few boats are currently equipped to connect.
During a typical cruise, a ship can emit as many GHGs as 12,000 cars, a recent study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Ocean Spills
In Vancouver today, the first cruise ship of the season was greeted by activists and a petition of over 50,000 names demanding that cruise lines stop dumping their sewage into the ocean.
In Canada, as in many other places in the world, operators are effectively authorized to discharge their wastewater (from toilets, washing machines, dishwashers, etc.) into the ocean, more than three miles nautical from the coast.
This waste causes many adverse effects on ecosystems, including the proliferation of toxic algae and, ultimately, dead zones.
Atmospheric pollution
In addition to GHGs, these luxury liners use heavy fuels and emit large amounts of sulfur oxide. It is a pollutant harmful to health and responsible for acid rain, in particular.
A Channel 4 survey, conducted in 2017, found that the air cruise passengers breathe contains more fine particles than in some of the world’s most polluted cities.
However, the Canadian standard on sulfur levels in fuel is stricter than elsewhere in the world.
Illegally dumped waste
The waste generated on board must be disposed of in the landfill upon return to shore or incinerated. But some companies do not respect this prohibition.
In 2019, the largest cruise company, Carnival Corporation, was ordered to pay $20 million for several environmental violations, including dumping plastic waste in the ocean.
The company was then on probation. She had already been sentenced to pay $40 million, two years earlier, for the same type of offence.