Carnival Corp will pay a settlement of $20 million after one of its subsidiaries, Princess Cruises, violated the terms of a 2017 settlement and dumped waste in the ocean.
An independent inspector noted that Carnival had illegally released nearly 2-million litres of sewage and over 41,000 litres of food waste ‘into water near ports and shores around the world,’ according to Business Insider. A court document submitted on Monday stated that ‘Carnival released food waste and plastic into the ocean, failed to accurately record waste disposals, created false training records, and secretly examined ships to fix environmental-compliance issues before third-party inspections without reporting its findings to the inspectors.’
The independent investigation follows on from Princess Cruises pleading guilty in 2017 to illegally releasing oil into the ocean and trying to cover it up. The cruise line had to pay $40 million as part of the settlement and its holding company Carnival was ordered to allow a third-party inspector to examine its ships during the five-year probation term that followed.
Between 2017 and 2018 Carnival violated environmental laws again – an inspector found more than 800 violations – according the Miami Herald. ‘The Miami Herald reviewed each incident and found that 24 were for illegally dumping sewage, food waste or oil; 19 were for illegally burning heavy fuel oil in protected areas; and more than 150 were the result of items like furniture accidentally going overboard.’
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Despite the cruise line companies failings, the inspector’s report stated that ‘on balance, the Company has provided a high level of cooperation during ECP Year One’.
‘These issues were unacceptable failures in our processes that were not in accordance with our policies and procedures, and do not reflect the culture we have built at Carnival Corporation and across our nine cruise line brands,’ a representative from Carnival told Business Insider.
Image: Lothar Baxmann from Pixabay
