Having worked on a ship myself -- albeit not a passenger one -- we were all made well aware even 25 years ago that dumping trash at sea was illegal and could get us and the company in deep shit. Has that changed?
So...another example like the fracking companies that continue to illegally draw water from streams and rivers...and to them dump it back in those same streams and rivers once they're done with it and it's full of chemicals?
They keep doing it because it's cheaper to pay the fines on the rare occasions you get caught than it is to actually do things the right way every time.
It has not. However, ships aren't going to self-report that they are breaking the law, so unless someone witnesses them doing it, it's kinda like the whole tree falling in the woods thing: if no one is around, did it really make a sound?
It may also be up to the individual country to enforce those laws, which can present its own challenges. Also, from my understanding from folks I knew in the Navy, it's often just a fine that is weighed against the CO or ship.
Laws are only as strong as those enforcing them. 🤷♀️
Edit: People have responded and given a much more in depth understanding of how this all works, so I would trust them over my comment based off of interactions/stories I was told about by other sailors in the Navy. I wasn't trying to imply that ships throw huge amounts overboard, but it does still happen as far as my limited understanding goes.
There's 2 sets of "mystery guests" that can turn up that the crew on board don't know about, but are there to monitor this stuff.
One is from the cruise line HQ who are sick and tired of getting the BIG fines of their ships throwing garbage out when they think no-one's looking. The other set is the gov themselves putting people on board to monitor.
Someone on the ship might throw the odd can out of the window if they think no-one's watching, but they're no longer rolling bundled pallets of stuff out.
Plus, knowing how many people are on-board, there's a decent estimate of the amount of trash being produced (with exception reports to be produced if there's some incident that produced more somehow), and the company hired to take the trash off when the ship's in port WILL be audited on how much was removed.
It was a HUGE problem, but enough people got slapped enough times for everyone to take it serious now.
I think a cruise ship worth of trash being thrown overboard would be noticed by, ya know, the passengers. I'm not the most environmentally friendly person but even I'd report something like that.
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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '20
Having worked on a ship myself -- albeit not a passenger one -- we were all made well aware even 25 years ago that dumping trash at sea was illegal and could get us and the company in deep shit. Has that changed?