A scrubber is a device that turns air pollution into water pollution. Scrubbers use millions of gallons of seawater to "scrub" ships' exhaust of pollutants, then dump the now polluted water back into the ocean. This enables ships to meet clean air regulations while still using cheap, polluting fuel. There is a huge body of recent scientific work that shows how toxic and harmful scrubber waste is.

Four years ago, the main cruise companies that come to Seattle agreed to "pause" the discharge of scrubber waste into Puget Sound, until a study could be completed.

Carnival Cruise financed a report claiming to show that scrubber discharge has no impact on the marine environment of Puget Sound! This is an example of an industry-funded study designed to produce a specific result, in order to enable harmful behavior. We’re concerned that cruise companies will use this study to justify backing out of the current scrubber discharge pause so they can go back to dumping huge amounts of toxic waste into the Salish Sea.

While the Port of Seattle can’t force cruise companies to keep the voluntary discharge pause in place, we need to make sure they know we expect them to do everything in their power to keep the agreement going, to protect our waters, marine life, public health and ocean economy.

Send a message today!