The last place you’d expect to find a rusticating environmentalist like myself would be on a cruise ship. But a few months ago my mother decided to spend a chunk of her children’s inheritance on a week-long cruise. Despite my muttering and grumbling about carbon footprints, I found myself bound for Alaska out of Vancouver along with six other family members.
This was not exactly my cup of Darjeeling, but I will do almost anything to make my parents happy and the promise of unlimited access to good Shiraz was very attractive. And at our first meal I found myself surrounded by cheerful stewards from Ubud, Mengwi and Singaraja. We were all delighted to speak Indonesian and talk of home. There were enough Wayans from Peliatan alone to fill a bale banjar. In fact, the Balinese crew have their own banjars afloat and despite the strange environment maintain their culture as much as they can, including regular offerings of fruit and flowers.
In Canada, a person who wants to make some serious money will take a job in the remote mining camps or the oil sands. It means long hours and hard work, but at the end of a couple of years a careful person can come home with significant savings. For some Indonesians, the cruise ships offer the same opportunity. Many dining room staff had worked in leading hotels and resorts in Bali, and had the social and language skills to step into the cruise business. The hours were long - the same staff served at breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. But the work was easier than the mines and the money was pretty good. When I asked about the crew’s food, the thumbs came up and the smiles were quick. There was an Indonesian chef, they told me. The food was plentiful and good, there was rice and sambal every day for those who wanted it (the Asian crew on this ship get through three tons of rice a week). A Javanese steward from the dining room told me, “We eat what the passengers eat - beef, lobster, ice-cream… four years ago I had a coronary and diabetes and had to clean up my act.” The guests and crew get through six tons of meat, seven tons of vegetables, three tons of potatoes and 23,000 eggs each week, and everything seems to be prepared with as much cholesterol as possible.
They say there’s something for everybody on a cruise ship. So the fourth day at sea found my mother at bingo, my sister at the spa, my father at a lecture, elderly aunt at the casino, family friend shopping, brother-in-law at cooking class … and me talking trash with the environmental officer.
This cruise ship is a floating resort and something of a self-contained village with a population of about 1900 guests and almost 800 crew (40% from Indonesia). That’s 2700 people taking showers, using the toilet, dirtying plates and sheets and just generally consuming resources at a terrific clip. Our ship from Vancouver to Alaska was one of no fewer than 30 plying this route over the summer months, and one of the smaller ones. Conservatively estimate 2700 people times 30 ships and we have at least 81,000 bodies a week chugging up and down this pristine coastline between April and September. I couldn’t help asking where all the garbage and wastewater was going.
A visit with the Hana, the ship’s environmental officer, was very reassuring. If only every resort in Bali complied with the environmental standards of these ISO14001-certified international cruise ships, the island would be close to pristine. This particular vessel was part of the Holland America Cruise Line fleet, which has won numerous awards for its eco-friendly practices.
A huge amount of organic waste is generated with 2700 people eating at least three times a day and the printing of multiple newsletters (with soy-based ink) to encourage ever more consumerism. The leftover food is collected, mixed with water, ground up with the paper waste, dehydrated and smokelessly incinerated on board. Food scraps alone may ground up and legally discharged 12 miles out to sea, a practice that must be popular with the larger marine species.
Every one of the crew members is required, on top of their other training, to take a course in basic ship-based environmental sustainability every year. Indonesians attend a training school in Jakarta where they learn their trades along with the stringent recycling and non-polluting practices aboard ship. So there’s a large subculture of Balinese out there who are not only earning good money to educate their kids, but are also bringing home sustainable waste management concepts to their compounds. At least, I like to think so.
Recycling systems apply to all plastics and metal aboard, which are collected and compacted (a full time crew of five men is dedicated to this task). Glass is collected and sorted for colour. These are all appropriately recycled ashore and the refund money from the recycling is shared among the crew. I tried to get permission for a visit to the bowels of the ship where the actual recycling takes place, but no dice.
The largest waste water stream by volume is the grey water - water from at least 2700 showers and baths each day plus the water used to wash about 12,000 plates and 5,000 glasses. Oh, and don’t forget the laundry...even though sheets and towels are not changed daily, there are still all those uniforms and table linens. And 2700 people flush a lot of toilets. The water is processed through several filtrations, a bacterial treatment and ultraviolet purification before being discharged into the sea cleaner than many municipal drinking water supplies.
Bilge water and other machine wastewater is filtered twice to remove oil or other pollutants, which are collected for appropriate disposal ashore. Room cleaners and disinfectants are selected on the basis of environmental friendliness. The voluntary monitoring standards of Holland America are higher than US national standards. I asked a lot of pointed questions, and I was impressed.
“All the ships follow very strict environmental guidelines,” said Emily, a ranger from Glacier Bay National Park. “No oil residues are discharged and we monitor the air emissions. There are also regulations about the level of noise a ship can make near the marine parks, so the animals won’t be disturbed.” Some areas are out of bounds all summer to prevent the wake from the big ships from disturbing harbor seal pups. Constant coastguard and ranger checks, internal assessments, national and international audits ensure that cruise ships meet and exceed many land-based standards.
Back ashore, I’m getting my land legs and undertaking damage control for the waistline. Soon I’ll be back in Ubud; maybe I’ll go looking for some of the men who have retired from their banjars afloat, and see if they’ve brought their environmental awareness home to their communities.
Dragons in the Bath, a collection of Ibu Kat’s stories, it is available at Ganesha Books in Ubud and at Biku in Seminyak, and at Periplus bookstores in Bali. It can be ordered nationally and internationally through www.dragonsinthebath.com <http://www.dragonsinthebath.com>
