Mallorca residents petition to limit cruise ships

["Roger"]

11,000 sign petition to set limit of one cruise ship per day. (Link)

I found this paragraph particularly interesting...

"The manifesto goes on to say that a cruise ship moored in the port produces 200 times more airborne pollution than a motorway. The ships also discharge “grey water” – from swimming pools and laundries – a mere four miles off the coast. Oil slicks from sunblock in swimming pools have also been shown to be harmful to marine life."​

Not surprisingly, there are also those who welcome tourism (taxi cab drivers, restaurant owners, etc.)

 

[CPNY]

Cruise ships are floating cesspools.

 

[Passepartout]

It would be good for the cruise industry to clean up the ships and their practices of disposing of a city-sized waste stream. With the advent of the giant, mega ships traversing relatively shallow seas with thousands of passengers it can't help but affect the environment. Cleaning up the exhaust of the crude-oil burning engines in port would help a lot, and pitching grey and minimally treated sewage scant miles outside populated shores wreaks havoc on fishing grounds and recreation areas important to the areas we all want to keep pristeen.

The other side of the coin is the local Chambers of Commerce who welcome the ships and their thousands of 'walking wallets' who come and spend billions of dollars and require minimal port facilities and few beds or infrastructure.

Lots of luck on the petition.

Jim

 

[Ken555]

Perhaps it’s time for cruise ships to simply do better at recycling, etc.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Passepartout]

Perhaps it’s time for cruise ships to simply do better at recycling, etc.

They DO try. You see their 'Save the Waves' signs all over imploring passengers to re-use towels etc, then the cabin stewards change the linens 3-4 times a day! It's largely lip service. And you see lines of garbage trucks picking up dozens of bins and compressed 'stuff' on pallets when in port if you look. Still, 3-4,000 humans onboard generate a LOT of waste!

I salute the people of Mallorca petitioning for less impact, but for every port voting to limit cruise ships' visits or impact, there are probably 10 port communities of buisinesspeople petitioning the cruise lines to PLEASE VISIT and disgorge all those visitors to come and spend money. We stopped in a small port in Denmark a couple years ago as the first cruise ship visit. The whole town turned out. They had the town band and desks of brochures and maps printed and buses parked to take passengers to the various attractions, and they fired ceremonial canons as we pulled out.

 

[Ken555]

They DO try. You see their 'Save the Waves' signs all over imploring passengers to re-use towels etc, then the cabin stewards change the linens 3-4 times a day! It's largely lip service.

I think you’re off base if you consider the first priority a choice by passengers.

And you see lines of garbage trucks picking up dozens of bins and compressed 'stuff' on pallets when in port if you look. Still, 3-4,000 humans onboard generate a LOT of waste!

Obviously. So what else can the ship do to recycle? I’m sure there are other steps that can be taken, and haven’t simply because it costs.

I salute the people of Mallorca petitioning for less impact, but for every port voting to limit cruise ships' visits or impact, there are probably 10 port communities of buisinesspeople petitioning the cruise lines to PLEASE VISIT and disgorge all those visitors to come and spend money. We stopped in a small port in Denmark a couple years ago as the first cruise ship visit. The whole town turned out. They had the town band and desks of brochures and maps printed and buses parked to take passengers to the various attractions, and they fired ceremonial canons as we pulled out.

When you have a town that needs to generate revenue, inviting a ship to stop is an option. However, as we have seen in Alaska and elsewhere, even the small towns have an environmental (and other) negative impact by the visits.

I think there is more that can be done by the cruise lines, and they (and they should) push back as much as possible since their number one priority is company valuation, stock price, etc. If governments didn’t insist on standards of compliance for cruise ships, the waste would be much, much higher than it is.

I don’t see anything wrong with cities trying to limit the number of ships that visit, out of concern that the environmental impact is too high. Naturally, this is just a way for the new government of Mallorca to show that they are environmentally friendly, but if they did limit the number of visits I suspect that would encourage the cruise lines to find other ways to show they can reduce their impact...and then petition to return. If all cities did this, they wouldn’t have any choice.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk