Cruise ships pledge to Go Green!

16-year-old Swedish girl Greta Thunberg has captured the hearts of many recently (including myself) with her passionate speeches about the effects global warming are already having, and will do even more so in the years to come.  It’s so important for everyone to join in with the effort to combat global warming so a few positive stories in the news from cruise companies have caught my attention this week.

‘Norwegian Cruise lines pledge to abandon plastic water bottles’

This was a headline in the New York Times this week with regards to their pledge that hopefully other cruise companies will follow.   Instead of giving passengers single use plastic bottles, Norwegian cruise lines will instead offer a re-usable option to passengers.  They aim to roll this out by beginning of 2020 and forecast that this could save about five million plastic bottles being used and then disposed of.

‘MSC Cruises to introduce new green technologies on MSC Grandiosa’

This was published by Cruise and Ferry and MSC have advised the impact will be that nitrogen oxide emissions from engine operations will be cut by 90%.  They are also introducing advanced wastewater treatment to purify wastewater to near tap-water quality.  The Grandiosa will also introduce advanced waste management.

There are many more things being done by cruise lines in order to try to come in line with, and with some even be pioneers in new go green technologies and ideas which are a necessity in order to keep down the carbon footprint of their ever growing cruising fleets.

I noticed when on my last cruise that only paper straws were available and there were people complaining about these.  I actually found them to be ok and you can really appreciate that one plastic straw won’t make a huge difference but with the volume that would get used on cruise ships this adds up very quickly if a solution isn’t found.

What do you think about cruise companies?  Are they doing enough to support the fight against global warming or not enough?  Or are you with Donal Trump in the view that Global Warming is not a problem and does not exist?  I’d love to hear your thoughts!