Cruise Line Carbon Initiative and Guest Impact

 There are a lot of pros to decreasing the carbon footprint of even just 1 cruise ship, but when you think about the fact that there are now over 320+(and growing) ships currently in service, the impact is exponential.  But as cruise lines work to meet standards, either set by governments, or even themselves, they have to be careful to not step on expectations of the guests on board.  This is where some cons come in.

The  (current) lifespan of an ocean Cruise Ship is between 17 and 30 years.  Once they are no longer in service, they usually go to a cruise ship graveyard to be dismantled.  The process is dirty and not environmentally friendly, but getting better.  There is a really cool article here that you can read about it.  Before that happens, a ship will go through a few dry dock refurbishments to improve guest experience and updates to remove the dated feel along with working on decreasing the carbon footprint of the ship.  

However, cruise lines look to more ways to meet their goals, usually trying to not have a financial impact on them, or even save them money in the process.   The biggest culprit here is waste! The average cruise goer is not thinking about the fact they loaded up their plate and asked for 3 entrees at dinner, then failed to eat half of it.  Or the little kid making a mess at the dinner who got sauce all over the white table cloth!  These are just a few examples of simple little things that add up both for the bottom line and even carbon footprint.

To mitigate things like this, cruise lines do things like decrease portion size, or as recently with Carnival, remove the table cloths from the main dining rooms.  Personally I found it funny how many people complained about that one.  Carnival has over 27 ships. The amount of water usage, time, and detergent alone decreases their waste dramatically.  The impact on your cruise experience should not be affected much by this, but apparently for some it does.

Other little things, like getting rid of single use items like plastic straws and single use cups.  I for one am not a fan of paper straws but I totally understand.  While on the Disney Wish, they had paper straws but still had single use cups.  I bought a cup while on board and reused my cup that had a lid all week which worked for me.  Not everyone wants to walk around carrying their cup with them, but I can see something like this coming sooner than later as well.

What do you think?  Are there changes that the Cruise lines say are for the better good impacting your cruise experience?  Do you have suggestions?  Let me know in the comments.