Test on Mediterranean cruise ship revealed harmful levels of air pollution on deck
An experiment on the sun deck showed 200 times the normal level of harmful particles in the air
Forget the benefits of sea breeze - taking a cruise could actually be bad for your health, according to a new report.
An experiment conducted on the deck of a Mediterranean cruise ship has revealed high levels of harmful pollution in the air.
The test, which was undertaken by journalists on an episode of the French documentary series Thalassa as the ship was leaving Marseille, revealed up to 200 times the normal level of harmful particles in the air.
On the sun desk and jogging lane of the boat, there were an average of 60,000 particles per cubic centimetre recorded during a 50-minute reading, which compares to an average of 1,000 to 2,000 particles usually found in fresh sea breeze.
The name of the cruise ship was not disclosed during the programme, so it is unclear whether most liners would suffer from the same issue, but the environmental pressure group Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU) said that many vessels have yet to switch to cleaner fuel.
Leif Miller, chief executive of Germany’s NABU, said: “Ship owners expose their passengers to high loads of health damaging pollutants.
“Despite these shocking data major parts of the cruise industry are refusing to switch to cleaner fuels and to install exhaust gas cleaning systems like they have been a common standard for all land-based sources for years.”
For some years, the German Lung Foundation had been advising that passengers with chronic respiratory diseases should stay in certain areas on the deck of cruise ships to avoid the inhalation of ship exhaust gases.
RELATED STORIES
NABU traffic expert Dietmar Oeliger said: “The measurement results do not surprise us in any way.
“It is known for a long time that marine pollutants contain a lot of toxic air pollutants, since the ship owners use particularly dirty fuel and do not use modern exhaust technology.”
Responding to the allegations, the Cruise Lines International Association said that the information provided by NABU are very unclear.
A spokesperson said: "It does not appear to be the average concentration and the graphs published on NABU’s website show very sudden and short peak concentrations which are not highlighted or explained."
They added: "It is very unfortunate that the actual data of these tests is not available as those small particles can be man-made or natural and for instance will include sea salt when tests are performed at sea.
"CLIA member companies take great care to ensure that each new generation of ships is "greener" than the previous one.
"The installation of exhaust gas cleaning systems is one of many measures that cruise companies are implementing on newly built ships to reduce emissions of air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide - thanks to the exhaust gas cleaning systems, these emissions have been reduced by more than 90 per cent."