It is common knowledge that ocean liners are hard polluters when it comes to them burning huge amounts of fossil fuel, still this act goes unpunished as it, unfortunately, does not break any laws. But in addition to this, large cruise ships are also known to pollute the oceans in other ways, such as dumping their trash directly into them.

One of the most well-known of them all, Carnival Cruise Lines, has been caught (once again), dumping large amounts of single-use plastic into the water of the Bahamas. They were caught and then fined by Judge Patricia Seitz to pay $20 million for the damages caused to the environment, and also threatened to forbid them in the future from docking in US waters. This punishment if applied might be more severe and would hit much harder the entire Carnivale Cruise Lines business, than a simple fine. Carnival is already known for its shady practices, as they constantly fail to record waste disposal and falsify waste records. In 2017, they have been caught of dumpling oil illegally into the ocean and trying to cover up their behavior. This denotes a total lack of respect towards our environment and an attitude of being above the law. Small steps are being made towards punishing these companies to change their evil practices, but until the fines and sanctions won’t majorly affect them, there is not a lot of hope in a shift of paradigm.

Carnival Corporation has agreed to pay $20 million after pleading guilty to releasing food and plastic waste into the ocean off the Bahamas. Environmental groups and customers have argued that fines on the order of $20 million are not significant enough to force Carnival Corp to change its long-held dumping practices. The fine of $20 million is equivalent to just 0.1% of the $18.88 billion Carnival Corp. brought in for 2018.

source: businessinsider.com