UN Warns About Pollution in the Caribbean Caused By Cruises and Oil Tankers

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is crying wolf over pollution generated by cruise liners and oil tankers that´s posing an impending threat to the poorest Caribbean islands and nations.

UNEP experts note as many as 50,000 cruise liners with 14.5 million tourists onboard sail through the Caribbean Sea every year, let alone freighters and oil tankers that make this region one of the world´s busiest maritime traffic areas.

Approximately 60 percent of all world cruises glide through the Caribbean every year. These liners usually dump toxic wastes in zones that are closer to such brittle ecosystems as coral reefs, wetlands and marshlands.

A cruise with 3,000 passengers onboard generates somewhere between 215,000 and 430,000 cubic feet of wastes, including dirty water off laundry systems, sprinklers and swimming pools, as well as fat concentrations, bandages and other medical residues.

Roughly 70 liters of perilous wastes, including photographic development chemicals, paint, dissolvent, laser printer cartridges, rechargeable batteries and cleaning liquids are dumped into the ocean every day.

In this respect, the UNEP report states “high concentrations of tar, as a result of oil spills, have been spotted in the beaches of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands and Curacao, as well as on the Windward islands of Barbados, Granada and Trinidad & Tobago.