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Canada’s West Coast has become a “toilet bowl” for cruise ship sewage and toxic waste, according to a recent report from environmental groups.

The report, produced by Stand.Earth and B.C.-based West Coast Environmental Law, found cruise ships en route to Alaska from the U.S. discharge roughly 31 billion litres of waste into Canadian waters every year before COVID-19, including in protected areas.

This included sewage, like human waste from toilets; greywater, which flowed from the kitchens, showers, laundry and more; and scrubber washwater, which made up a majority of all cruise ship waste and is arguably the most damaging.

All that toxic waste, which could fill roughly 12,400 Olympic-sized pools, was purposefully dumped in Canada rather than the waters off Alaska or Washington State, taking advantage of this country’s relatively lax shipping regulations, according to the report.

Dumping grounds included the Great Bear Sea, according to the report, where endangered populations of killer whales try to survive on diminishing salmon populations, while toxins and heavy metals slowly accumulate inside their bodies.

Immediately upon entering Alaskan waters, the ships quit excreting as they became ensnared in the state’s comprehensive dumping regulations, the report reads. They’d have to save it for the journey home.

“Canadian regulations are the low watermark on the West Coast,” said Anna Barford, Canada shipping campaigner with Stand.Earth. “Our rules are 18 times less stringent than Alaska’s.”

In Alaska, ships need to obtain permits before dumping sewage and greywater, and only after treatment with effective sanitation devices, she said. On the other end, Washington State has banned the dumping of even treated cruise waste in 6,000 square kilometres of protected ocean in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound.

In comparison, Canada currently allows the dumping of treated sewage three nautical miles away from shore, and untreated sewage just 12 nautical miles away.

It’s much cheaper, then, for cruise companies to simply dump in Canada. The alternatives were to either save it for a land-based treatment facility, or install and maintain a more effective waste treatment system, Barford said.

“We talk about U.S. companies because they’re so prevalent on this coast,” Barford said. “But the Canadian rules allow any ship from anywhere in the world, including from within Canada, (and) they treat us like a toilet bowl,” Barford said.

What is scrubber washwater and why is it damaging?

According to the report, the vast majority of cruise waste is made up of scrubber wastewater. On a single voyage, a large cruise ship could generate as much as 200 million litres of the sulphurous exhaust.

“We see that 97 per cent of the waste that's coming from ships, comes from ships using scrubbers,” said Sam Davin, a senior specialist in marine conservation and shipping with World Wildlife Fund.

Davin described scrubbers as a “loophole technology” that allows cruise companies to skirt air pollution regulations by redirecting pollutants into the water instead. By spritzing combustion gasses with “washwater,” scrubbers are able to remove dangerous sulphur oxides and other pollutants from engine exhaust.

This allows cruise companies to keep burning cheap fuel sources like heavy fuel oils to power their ships. Heavy fuel oil exhaust is too high in sulphur to meet air pollution regulations, but it’s fair game to separate out the sulphur and pour it in the ocean instead, Davin said.

“That resulting waste contains large amounts of heavy metals and carcinogenic compounds,” Davin said. “These substances can enter the marine environment, they can concentrate in marine wildlife, and they have the potential to result in excess morbidity and mortality for wildlife populations.”

As the toxins move up the food chain, humans will inevitably be affected, Davin continued. Those especially at risk are people engaged in subsistence harvesting, who depend on the fish off the coast of B.C. to survive.

“Anytime you have contamination in the marine food web … anyone who is a consumer of seafood has a risk of being exposed,” he said.

What’s Canada doing about it?

In April of 2022, Transport Canada announced new measures aimed at curbing cruise ship dumping in Canada during the 2022 cruise season.

These featured “non mandatory” regulation updates, which included banning greywater dumping (no longer just sewage) three nautical miles from shore; treating greywater together with sewage if dumped between three to 12 nautical miles from shore; and for ships to “endeavour” to use an approved sewage treatment device that minimizes fecal coliform bacteria, found in the digestive tracts of animals, including humans, and also in their feces. Water pollution caused by fecal contamination is a serious problem due to the potential for contracting diseases.

The new measures did not include any restrictions against scrubber washwater. Instead, a spokesperson for Transport Canada told the Star they’re “committed to working with the maritime industry to develop a feasible approach that can reduce washwater discharge in Canadian waters going forward.”

Of the rest, they said: “these measures align, and in certain cases exceed, with those in the United States, namely in Alaska, California, and Washington State.”

The measures were “developed in co-ordination with the cruise industry and were implemented to coincide with the restart of the cruise industry in Canada,” the agency continued.

The spokesperson said Transport Canada is working with the cruise industry to implement its new measures on a mandatory basis starting in 2023. Their changes are currently enacted through an interim order, though Transport Canada says they’re working to make them permanent.

The dumping that happens on the West Coast is just a fraction of the total waste injected into Canada’s waters. In February of 2022, the World Wildlife Fund released the first-ever report attempting to measure the total amount of ship wastewater discharged in Canada.

They estimate vessels collectively release 147 billion litres of harmful waste every year into Canada’s three oceans. Cruise ships generate the majority of this waste, their report reads.

How can Canada do better?

Moving forward, Stand.Earth’s report recommends patching the scrubber loophole by mandating the use of cleaner, low-sulfur fuel sources like California does, and has, since 2009.

They also recommend tightening the standards for treated sewage and greywater, designating no-discharge zones in protected areas, and mandating third-party monitoring to ensure ships are following the rules.

Sarah King, head of oceans and plastics campaign with Greenpeace Canada, agreed with their recommendations but said Canada also needs to take a more “holistic” approach to conservation.

“We really need to look at the laws that are governing not only our oceans but our approach to protecting nature overall,” she said. Cruise ship pollution is just one facet of a multitude of threats against Canada’s oceans, she continued.

“We hope that moving forward … (Canada will be) really looking at the full picture, given the stress that our oceans and marine biodiversity is currently under, and start to create regulations and management plans accordingly,” she said.

With COVID-19, Canada’s coasts have been given a reprieve, King said — but as restrictions lift, the cruise industry will come roaring back to life.

“We had definitely hoped that the federal government would have taken the opportunity to improve regulations before the ramp up of the (cruise) industry again,” King said. “But unfortunately, that hasn't taken place.”

“There's just so many threats currently at play. We need to start stopping the pollution from entering the environment in the first place, and really take bolder action to regulate industry and what they can and can't do in an already ailing marine environment.”

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