There is a large community out there that loves to go on cruise ships, right? You see it all the time. You see people are like, this is the best thing ever. I can get on a boat. I can hop from place to place to place, whether it be in the Caribbean, in the Antarctic, in the Arctic. And they get on these massive, massive boats, which are cities, floating cities, essentially. And they get on these boats. They eat all they want.
They drink whatever they want. They have a great time. They see. the sites, they see different islands, they see different places in different cities, whether they're in Europe or the Caribbean or Alaska. But what we don't really see is some of the pollution that happens in the water. And this is what we're going to be talking about today because there's a new study that talks about scrubbers over on the west coast of Canada and the US that
is emitting a lot of toxic chemicals and pollution. into the ocean. Now it's not going to change the entire ocean or the entire Pacific Ocean, but it's going to definitely affect communities over the long run as there are more and more Alaskan cruise ships that are going up to view the beautiful nature of Alaska. So we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. I am here as a resource to you. My entire company is built based on
being a resource for you. And you can get more information at speakupforblue.com. And if you want stuff to get access to you, or get to you right in your inbox, you can sign up for our newsletter, speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter, and you can get news, you can get jobs, job advertisements, you can get our latest videos and our latest podcasts sent to your inbox Monday to Friday. All right, let's get into the show. Look, cruise ships. Cruise ships are a thing. Like, it is huge, right?
We've seen cruise ships, just that whole community, uh, you know, for the good and the bad. I mean, over the pandemic, it was bad. You know, things, you know, it's, it's a floating city. So things get through this city pretty quickly just because everybody's in such tight quarters. But these are floating cities. I've, I've been on one cruise ship in my entire life.
Probably the last time I'll go on that cruise ship, but it's an interesting Situation you you board this this massive ship, you know, the one that I went out with like 5,000 people You start off usually in like say a place like Florida and then you go on and you go travel to the different places Within like the islands, right?
So I think I went to Honduras we went to a place in Mexico and then we went to the Bahamas then we came home and But during that time you are floating on the water and you are just enjoying the ocean and sometimes there's like nothing around but your ship. There's nothing on the horizon, it's just water. And it's pretty cool to see. However, the things that you don't see is you don't see the pollution that
is caused by these ships. And certain areas have specific regulations that they can only allow ships with specific technology that's on those boats that say, hey, you can't pollute or you can't do certain things. Now, you've got to remember, if anybody has been to an island where these cruise ships frequent, you're going to see this massive pier that gets built up. That is a disturbance to all that ecological sort of communities that are along there, all the habitats
and stuff. I've had people on the podcast a number of years ago talk about what's happening in Mexico with these large piers that are built to accommodate these cruise ships and the destruction that they cause and the problems that they cause in terms of potential grounding or coral reefs and so forth. But there are regulations that have been set forth even with like discarding garbage and how to where they need to discard garbage. Like certain islands just
can't take it anymore. There's a lot of things that go on within cruise ships, good and bad. Like I don't judge anybody who takes a cruise ship. I understand why they take it. But what we have to do, and we'll talk about this towards the end of the episodes, we have to really think about and do our research on which cruise ships are the best. Just because the biggest and the newest doesn't mean it's the best for the environment. A lot of the times, when you go on a cruise
ship, you are going to look at the environment. You're going to look at the water, you're going to different Caribbean or island communities or the Antarctic or the Arctic, and you're going to see something that you probably won't see every day, let's be honest here, and you have to get there by ship. And they're wonderful things, it's nature-based. And so what you want to do is when you do things that are nature-based, you want to be aware
of how you are affecting the nature. I went to a conference in Malaysia a number of years ago, great conference, it was wonderful. And I talked to a couple people like, oh, are you going diving? Because they had their diving certificate. And they said, no, we don't really go diving because we travel a lot and we don't want to put in too much of a footprint on there. Now, there are some people who did go diving and others who didn't, but I get
it, right? When we travel, when we do something, we want to make sure that we have the smallest imprint footprint on that community and in a positive way if we do it not in a negative way right so there's a lot of things that you have to consider when you are taking these shifts and we'll talk a little bit more about it uh in the towards the end of the episode because there's a resource that i have from this website where i got it called
the cool down where i got this article they were talking about what's happening with these cruise ships that are going to Alaska. And a detailed report that was put out by Alaska Public Media has said, many cruise ships use a technology called scrubbers to clean their exhaust. These systems flush out harmful chemicals from ship pollution, but there's a catch. That pollution is dumped directly into the sea. So they filter out that from the emissions, but
then it gets dumped into the sea. So it's not really taken care of. It's just displaced in a different way. So, for example, in June, an inspector in Ketchikan, Alaska spotted a cloudy discharge creating a shimmery film on the water's surface. It's not an isolated incident. Most cruise ships visiting Alaska now use these open-loop scrubbers discharging
millions of gallons of polluted wastewater daily. on average, according to the report that is linked in this article, which I'll link in the show notes or in the description, depending on where you're watching this on YouTube, or if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app. This is one of these hidden problems of the
cruise ship industry. something we don't normally see you may see it if you are on you know top side on the on the cruise ship and you're looking out the window or you're looking across like past the stern you may or may not see this shimmery kind of filter um or or shine on this on the ocean surface and you kind of wonder like this is a massive cruise ship it's gonna emit some things and to be able to make sure it it's diluted That's key right the
the old I was actually talking to some friends of mine last night. We were out to dinner And I mentioned, I said, the engineering motto for a lot of people is the solution to pollution is dilution. So the fact is, if you're discharging chemicals into the ocean or discharging wastewater into an ocean, you would
think that it would just get diluted pretty quickly. But there is a carrying capacity of this ocean, meaning that the ocean can only take so much before changes start to happen or before it starts to get to the wrong area. These cruise ships don't always go out to just in the offshore where you can't see land. A lot of times these cruise ships are traveling up the coastline. Water
comes in towards the coastline. So there could be chances where this pollution gets to coastal communities and coastal habitats, destroying those habitats. If these cruise ships increase their time or the amount of times that they're in these areas and these scrubbers are continuing to discharge this waste water and these pollutants that over time these habitats are not going to be able to buffer or be resilient against fighting this these chemicals. And so they're going to change over
time. And by the time they change, it's going to be too late. Then we get into restoration practices or even identifying. And this is, this happens all the time. We start to see a problem. We're like, Hey, we need to fix this. And then the companies are like, you know what? We don't really need to fix this because it's going to cost us a lot of money and we're not seeing any kind of damages. So we'll do studies and we'll show that there's no damages and we'll just continue to
do this. And they'll continue and continue. And they might even increase the amount of boats that go or the frequency of boats that go past these specific communities and then eventually what's going to happen is the amount of chemicals are going to go the habitats aren't going to be able to buffer against it that's going to flip into a bad scenario where you'll start to see algal growth or you'll start to see you know these these filter feeding organisms
like oyster spots, or mussels, or these corals, or whatever is on these coastlines. And there's deep sea corals and sponges that are along the west coast of Canada and the US, where these ships go along. And you're going to start to see a change in those communities. And then you're going to start to see a decrease in the amount of animals that are around those communities. the communities are going to just basically just disappear slowly.
And then by that time, by the time we identify it, then we have to go to the government and say, hey, you know what? This isn't actually a good idea. We've told you this before, but they said there was no changes. Now we're starting to see changes. And then by the time it goes towards doing action, the community is already in disrepair and it's very difficult to get them back to a healthy spot. Then you're spending more and more money on restoration. You're
trying to get the companies to pay for that. But then the company's like, you know what? We're not going to travel around that way. We'll find a different way and we're not going to do it. Then you have to sue them. And it's just a whole thing. This happens all the time, like all the time. And we wanted to stop that right from the get-go. So there are technologies out there that can have scrubbers that are better, right? In specific areas, even within the US and across the world, they have
banned scrubber discharges. So for instance, some nations like Sweden and Denmark have banned it. California requires ships to use cleaner fuel, burning fuel along its coast, and dozens of environmental groups are calling for the US Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, to implement a nationwide ban on scrubbers. That will stop this action from happening, and then we don't
have to worry about it. The cruise ship industry will be able to figure out different ways, and using technology to figure out different ways of getting rid of these chemicals, but we won't have to worry about
them being in the waters along the coastline. The coastline are those beautiful places that we like to travel to wherever you are along North America or anywhere in the world that we take pictures of and that we remember and we put, you know, we get paintings of coastlines and the people who live around them and we just love them and God forbid those beautiful pristine coastlines are looking like green and smelly and they don't give you
that beautiful scenery that we love to see and that we have that blue mind for. We can save those just by taking away scrubbers, right? Just banning scrubbers, that would be great. Now, I mentioned the EPA would be in charge of banning these scrubbers and making the travel industry, the cruise ship industry responsible for taking away those. But let's be honest, the EPA, the US EPA is
in the targets of the Republican Party. Last time the Republican Party was in president and had more power, they really, I guess, decreased the amount of power the EPA had. They took away a lot of the regulations in the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. So people who are from the US, which is a lot of the audience members in here, This is where you talk about getting people to vote for better structure, better environmental
practices from politicians who are going into power. And I'm talking about this now because there is an election in about 15 days, maybe a little bit more. A major U.S. election for the next presidency, plus a lot of governorships, a lot of Senate, there's some Senate races, there's some Congress, congressional races, and you need to make that decision on what party is going to actually put
forward and say, hey, you know what? We need to protect the departments, like the US EPA, NOAA, all those departments that protect our environment and ensure that cruise ships, as well as other industries, follow the regulations and adhere to the regulations so that they are protecting the American people. They are protecting their oceans. They are protecting our oceans here in Canada
that get affected by cruise ships going up to Alaska. We're all in together and we need to take more pride in our coastlines to make sure that they are okay because they are not okay in a lot of places and we need to make sure that we do that. We love coastlines. We love seeing blue. We love seeing that difference, that change from land to water. That is the place where we see the most. especially when we go on vacation. That's
what we want to see. No matter if you're in the Caribbean, if you're in North America, if you're in Europe, we want to go down to the coastline and be able to view the beautiful change of scenery and see that coastline. It's magical and it's something that we need to protect and have more pride in in ourselves. For Canada, it is the largest coastline in the world. And I'm damn proud to have that in my country. And I know that's something that I take pride in to make sure that that is okay.
But other things you can do as individual travelers, you can make a difference as well. According to this article, when you're planning your next vacation, consider the eco-friendly alternatives to large cruise ships. Look for smaller, more sustainable tour operators. Some of those are very based on education. You get more out of the trip as well. And they prioritize environmental protection. So if you choose a cruise, research the company's environmental
practices. They should have it on their website or go to reviews or so forth. And opt for those that have the best track record. Look for something that hasn't been in the court for environmental practices that are not good for the oceans. That's really what you're looking for. And so by making more informed decisions, supporting a sustainable and responsible tourism, we can send a clear message to those companies who are not adhering
to these practices and be like, hey, you know what? We need to do better. You need to do better if you want us to pay for your services. and enjoy your cruises. with my family and we were part of a small tour group and the guy that was really into preserving, we went to the Colosseum, we went to all these different tourist spots with these, you know, these structures that are like thousands of years old and we learned a lot because he knew he had the degrees in
ancient Roman history and ancient Egyptian history. And he talked a lot about the different histories, the good and the bad. And we learned so, so much. And it was a smaller tour, but I found it was the better tour because I got the most out of it. We could ask more questions and we can get more involved in local areas that we
were in and sort of the structures. And you can do the same thing with cruise ships, smaller cruise ships, because they know they interact more with a lot of the smaller venues, a lot of the smaller vendors that are along the stops at where they stop, and you can get more out of your trip. So consider using these smaller places when you do so, because that is gonna be really special, and
it's gonna make your trip a lot better. So there's a lot of benefits to looking at not using these larger cruise ships to have your trip, to have your next trip. So I highly recommend that, but I'd love to hear what you do when you go on your vacation. I wanna hear how you look at, and do you look at environmental practices? Are you going to start looking at environmental practices? That's something that you can do any day and any time. So I'd love to hear from you. Just
go and put your comments in the comment section in YouTube. Or you can just comment on Spotify if you're listening from Spotify. Or you can send me a DM at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's at HowToProtectTheOcean. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How To Protect The Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Ange Lu, and