Ships Now Use Caribbean Sea as Dump for Solid Wastes

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Miles   (kilometers) from shore in the open Caribbean Sea, cruise ships are dumping ground-up glass, rags and cardboard packaging. But vessels in other waters such as the Baltic and North seas are prohibited from throwing any solid waste overboard other than food scraps.
The difference? Many countries with coastlines on the world’s most fragile seas abide by a United Nations dumping ban that requires them to treat ship-generated garbage on land. Caribbean islands, however, have yet to adopt the ban, saying they simply don’t have the capacity to treat ship garbage on shore. They also fear the ban could push ships to dock in less-regulated ports of call.
“We don’t have space to take nothing from nobody,’’ said Travis Johnson, assistant harbor master in Saba, an island of 1,500 people that is building a new pier to accommodate larger cruise ships.
The UN’s International Maritime Organization outlawed dumping in 1993 for the Caribbean, a largely enclosed area where the string of islands blocks currents that would flush waste into the Atlantic Ocean. It will not take effect, however, until enough of the surrounding nations report their capacity for treating trash from cruise ships, information that the vast majority of nations so far have withheld.
The UN created the ban to protect areas that are vulnerable because of heavy ship traffic or sensitive ecology. It has already taken effect in the Antarctic, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the Persian Gulf and is due to come into force in the Mediterranean in May.
Environmentalists say debris dumped in the ocean can entangle sea creatures, damage water quality and alter ecosystems by providing habitats for opportunistic organisms.
Ignoring the ban also has its consequences for tourism. Some trash dumped in the ocean washes ashore with the winds and currents, fouling the beaches. In the Cayman Islands, the government has traced milk cartons on shore to a passing cruise ship.
“If you just dump this out at sea, eventually it gets back up on land,’’ said Jeff Ramos, a Curacao-based US Coast Guard officer.