← on nowLGR-044 · v0.1.0 · model · estimate cruise ships: how much, per second and per year
cruise ships · about 300 of them
sewage discharged, litres
3.8 billion
a year
120
a second
10 million
a day
passengers at sea right now
~600 000
about thirty million a year, a week each. a large ship burns about the fuel of a small town.
method EPA 2008 discharge assessment scaled to today's fleet; passenger numbers from CLIA; T&E 2019 for sulphur.
- one company’s fleet emitted ten times the sulphur oxides of all of europe’s cars in one year.source: Transport & Environment 2019
- the sewage is legal beyond twelve miles. most of it is treated. some of it is not. nobody is out there checking.source: US EPA 2008 cruise ship discharge assessment; Friends of the Earth
live. this is the channel itself. embed it anywhere:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?channel=cruise%20ships" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · cruise ships"></iframe>
or the whole broadcast, every channel, the same for everyone:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?embed=1" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · on now, everywhere"></iframe>
how this number is built
- method
- EPA 2008 discharge assessment scaled to today's fleet; passenger numbers from CLIA; T&E 2019 for sulphur.
- range
- sewage 3–5 billion litres/yr; at-sea passengers 500,000–700,000
- confidence
- estimate
- weakness
- discharge is estimated from per-passenger figures, not measured at sea.
- dispute
- dispute LGR-044 · corrections are credited
- data
- channels.json (sign-in) · full entry · CC BY 4.0