"" Writer's Wanderings: Cruising With An Eco-Wake

Thursday, November 02, 2017

Cruising With An Eco-Wake

So, okay, I made up the Eco-wake thing, but how do you make the transition from an ecological footprint to something that happen on the water?--most of us don't walk on water. Cruise lines are becoming more and more conscious of what they are doing to the environment. It used to be that as long as you were in international waters you could just dump the holding tank and throw the garbage overboard. Not any more.

There are more regulations that are enforced and lots of improvements to ship design and systems within the ship that lessen the impact of our cruising population on the environment. Many of the cruise lines are very proud of their efforts and when you are cruising with them will explain much of what they do. One example, waste water that is processed well enough to be able to drink. 

There is a list of environmentally conscious cruise lines, some river cruises and some ocean cruises, at Smarter Travel. Two of the big ones are Disney and Holland America. Since we cruise often with Holland America I can tell you that they do make quite an effort and encourage passengers to be more aware of recycling and reducing waste. Waste cans in the rooms are slotted so that you can separate paper from other waste.

In the article it mentions that we leave a bigger impact when we cruise than we do on land. I guess I don't quite understand that except that a ship needs to use fuel and has emissions but then so do our cars. I'm just glad that there are improvements being made to the industry since I'm not giving up cruising and I do want to have places to visit that are still beautiful and clean.

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