Cruise ships are floating cities that produce enormous volumes of completely unregulated or inadequately regulated waste.

Today's largest ships can transport more than 5,000 passengers and crew, and have the capacity to generate more than 11 million gallons of waste water every day, as well as carry significant amounts of hazardous chemicals from onboard printing, photo processing, and dry cleaning operations.

   The cruise industry has a dismal environmental record. A report recently released by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) found that, from 1993 to 1998 alone, cruise ships were involved in 87 confirmed cases of illegal discharges of oil, garbage, and hazardous wastes into US waters, and have paid more than $30 million in fines.

In reality, this number drastically understates the magnitude of the problem, representing only a fraction of the actual illegal dumping being carried out by the cruise industry.

In addition to the 87 confirmed cases, there were an additional 17 cases that were referred to the countries where the cruise ships were registered. Some of the 87 cases involved multiple incidents of illegal dumping that, according to the Department of Justice, numbered in the hundreds over the six-year period.

Furthermore, this figure represents only the number of detected cases; the aforementioned GAO report reveals that the US Coast Guard's detection and enforcement capabilities are hamstrung by numerous shortcomings.

   Foreign-flagged cruise ships represent approximately 1.5% of all foreign-flagged ships entering US ports; however, they are responsible for considerably more than this proportion (4%) of the total confirmed illegal discharges committed by all types of foreign- flagged ships entering US ports during this period, using the conservative estimate of 87 incidents perpetrated by cruise ships.

   The cruise industry's repeated violation of environmental laws is a matter of grave concern. In a particularly disturbing case, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. admitted to routinely dumping waste oil from several of its ships, and deliberately dumping hazardous chemicals from photo processing labs, dry cleaning operations and print shops into several US harbors and coastal areas, over a period of several years.

Ships were rigged with secret piping systems to bypass pollution treatment equipment. Investigators said the company's violations were so unscrupulous that they characterized the case as a "fleet-wide conspiracy" by Royal Caribbean to "use our nation's waterways as its dumping ground," and so pervasive that the criminal conduct amounted to a routine business practice. The company pled guilty to a total of 21 felony counts in six US jurisdictions, and agreed to pay a record $18 million in criminal fines.

   Cruise ships are point sources of enormous volumes of waste, which can have significant impacts on water quality, the marine environment and public health.

The problems associated with these wastes and their impacts will only escalate in the future, as the cruise industry has been expanding at a steady rate of 8% per year and is projected to grow by more than 9% per year from 1999-2003.

   The industry's exploding growth, coupled with its legacy of illegal dumping and other criminal conduct, clearly demonstrates the need for stricter monitoring and regulation of the cruise industry's management and disposal of its ships' waste streams.