Does passenger ships discharge waste water/human waste in to the sea?

Question

Does passenger ships discharge waste water/human waste in to the sea?

Answer 1

Unfortunately yes. At least in my boat, when I take my home boys on beer drinking cruises. I have no port-a-jon.

Mostly #1 is discharged.

So your answer is a case by case answer.

Answer 2

In the open ocean waste water can be discharged directly overboard.   Within 12 miles of land or in certain special areas like around the Hawai'i islands and the Med and Red sea it must be treated on shipboard before discharge.    Most ships treat it wherever they are since everyone has a camera now and would love to take a picture of turds floating off to send to some news program.     Any non petroleum based waste can be discharged in non special areas over 24 miles from land.   A log must be kept recording what and how much of what is being thrown over the side.

Answer 3

They discharge human waste, garbage, laundry water and anything else they can get away with. It's a whole lot cheaper for them to discharge it into the ocean. About the only things that there are big regulations and big fines on is any type of plastic or medical waste. Everything else gets dumped.

Answer 4

On the ships that I have worked on we were 3 miles off shore when we pumped the waste tanks overboard. The waste was pumped there a macerator that chopped up the waste into small particles. Which is legal to do. Some smaller boats don't have such equipment so it all goes into a holding tank and get pumped out at the marinas or by pump out boats.

Answer 5

yep, more than just that, you would be shocked to see what goes overboad in the opean sea when no body is there to watch.

Every piece of rubbish that has no use and not near to a bin at the time goes overboard. it's the biggest bin in the world, no body is watchin and the ship workers don't care about the environment. it's true and a shame on society.

Answer 6

Yes, but international law requires a ship to be at least 12 miles from shore. Within 12 miles the system must be in "transit" mode which diverts all waste into the CHT (collection Holding Transfer) tank.

Answer 7

No they store it in holding tanks and off load it at port.  That has not been done since the 70's.

Answer 8

Large ships have a sanitary system (MSD- marine sanitation device) to process waste and waste water.  Water from the toilets is called black water.  It is sent to a waste processing unit.  The water is separated from the solid and sludge waste.  The water is treated and sanitized to kill bacteria before it can be discharged overboard.  The solids are typically held in tanks and pumped ashore when the ship comes in to port.

Gray water is the water from all other drains on a vessel.  It is sometimes sent straight overboard, but technically should not be due to the pollutants that may be present. It should be sent to the MSD for processing.

When a ship is using too much water for the MSD to handle the waste water gets stored in tanks for shore side discharge at a processing facility.

Small vessels (like the previous guy's boat) are supposed to store all waste in a container if they do not have an approved MSD.  According to the EPA no raw sewage is to be discharged into US waters without a permit.

Commercial vessels tend to obey state and federal laws - especially those regarding pollution issues.  Fines and penalties can be severe.

Wikipedia has a good bit of information regarding the legal aspect of your question.  If you want more information check their page about the regulation of ship pollutants.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_...