Florida-based Royal Caribbean has made waves when it comes to being environmentally savvy, leading the charge in eco-friendly cruising.
Meteorologist Katie Walls met Captain Sindre on Utopia of the Seas’ bridge as he prepared to set sail for the Caribbean Sea. In his 25 years with Royal Caribbean, he has seen a lot of changes and effort to protect the environment.
“There’s been a lot of changes throughout the years to make the ships more environmentally friendly. That’s something that will continue to evolve; we haven’t finished with it yet,” explained Captain Sindre.
That includes more fuel-efficient engines that produce more power on less gas. Even the paint on the ship’s exterior matters to reduce friction.
Utopia of the Seas is the second largest cruise ship in the world. With nearly 9-thousand passengers and crew on board, roughly the population of St. Pete Beach, we wanted to know where does all the trash go?
Walls asked Environmental Officer Manish Joshi, who has been with the company for 21 years. He ensures everything done on board is environmentally friendly and code-compliant.
When he started with Royal Caribbean, waste had to be stored on board the ship before heading to a landfall at the next port. Now, crew members carefully sort and process recyclables in the ship’s designated waste and recycling center.
“Most of the waste that we generate on board is recycled, or we do offload it, but it’s turned into energy-to-gas. So, they take all this waste from us and turn it into gas energy,” he explained.
Part of Royal Caribbean’s Green Hub program is to not produce any waste in local landfills at particular ports, including Port Canaveral. That means that the landfill down I-95 from Cape Canaveral does NOT receive any waste from Royal Caribbean ships.
Even sewage is treated on board.
“We take all these waste streams, put it in a mixing tank. In this mixing tank, there are bioreactors, bacteria that eat the solids from the liquid. Liquid gets treated by UV lights and this water gets discharged into the sea. So, before it goes into the system, it’s really really dirty water but when it comes out, it’s so clean that it’s drinkable…but we don’t drink it on board,” explained Joshi.
He personally samples the treated wastewater every day, and only when it’s safe to drink is it allowed to be discharged into the sea.
As for providing fresh water on board, Royal Caribbean ships no longer need to depend on ports’ clean water, an often precious commodity. With reverse osmosis systems on board, they can produce their own clean water.
The quest for clean cruising continues with more projects planned later this year.
