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NCL Eliminates Single-Use Plastic Bottles​​​​​​​ ... Will RCCL Follow Suit?


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January 2, 2020

Norwegian Becomes First Major Global Cruise Company to Eliminate Single-Use Plastic Bottles

 

Norwegian Cruise Line has replaced all single-use plastic beverage bottles acros

Norwegian Cruise Line has replaced all single-use plastic beverage bottles with plant-based carton containers across its fleet. As a result, Norwegian will be eliminating over six million single-use plastic water bottles a year. This initiative is being facilitated in partnership with JUST® Goods, Inc. a global consumer goods company dedicated to producing responsibly sourced products, contained in sustainable packaging.

This achievement is one of the latest efforts driven by Norwegian’s Sail & Sustain Environmental Program, which asserts the company’s commitment to protecting our environment and oceans. In 2018, Norwegian eliminated single-use plastic straws across its fleet and private destinations. In addition, Norwegian is working to eliminate single-use plastic shampoo and conditioner bottles later this year.

“This is a very special and very proud moment for us,” said Harry Sommer, president and chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Line. “As a leading cruise line, we are thrilled to make such an impact by eliminating single-use beverage bottles across our fleet. It’s just one of the ways we are working to preserve our oceans and the destinations we visit. While this is just the beginning of what we and others can do, we are incredibly committed to our Sail & Sustain program and believe wholeheartedly in the importance of preserving our natural resources. We will continue to strive towards making environmentally conscious decisions to benefit our earth.”

Envisioned and founded by American rapper, songwriter, actor and activist Jaden Smith and family, JUST takes an innovative approach to sourcing and packaging the world’s most valued resource - water. The revolutionary company focuses on an impact model, taking into consideration both how the water is sourced and packaged. JUST is 100% spring water in a plant-based carton. The carton is made of 82% renewable materials – the paper carton is made from trees grown in responsibly-managed forests and the cap and shoulder are made from a sugarcane-based plastic. It is refillable and recyclable. JUST has a global presence with bottling facilities in Glens Falls, NY; Ballymena, Northern Ireland; and Ballarat, Australia, thus allowing the company to meet demand around the world without shipping water from a single production source. JUST takes care to use the most efficient shipping options available.

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I am just off HAL Oosterdam and they only gave out Open Water brand aluminum can "bottled" water with the drink package. I really liked that because on Freedom this summer I felt terrible about the number of plastic bottles we went through (I had my reusable Hydroflask for in-cabin water but forgot to bring it out around the ship with me).
I guess it's not yet fleet-wide if NCL is claiming they're first. 

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I was on the Liberty of the Seas over thanksgiving and did the Q&A with the Captain and Officers on the last day. I forgot what it’s called. You go and ask them questions about the ships and operations. Someone there asked about single use plastics and the Captain said RCCL is extremely committed to the environment and are having discussions about this issue at corporate. Mentioned the straws being eliminated, and said it only a matter of time before single use plastics are eliminated as well. 

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8 hours ago, monctonguy said:

I hope not....increased cost I am sure...and I thought plastic was recyclable and we all do our due diligence to make sure we put the plastic's in the recycling bins..??!:35_thinking:

 

 

Problem with all the plastic bottles is that there isn't a great demand for the used plastic.  Not enough companies are buying them, so they end up sitting.  Some towns are stopping recycling programs as they can't get rid of what they collect.  Plastic isn't biodegradable, I think it takes 1,000 years to decompose.  If they aren't melted down and reused, then what happens to it?  Landfills. 

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8 hours ago, monctonguy said:

I hope not....increased cost I am sure...and I thought plastic was recyclable and we all do our due diligence to make sure we put the plastic's in the recycling bins..??!:35_thinking:

 

 

Unfortunately plastics really don’t get recycled like they should. Would take too long to explain here. Some political. Some economic. Some technical,  But the invention of plastic may be the greatest and worst thing ever created by mankind. They fill our oceans and our landfills and will take forever to go away.

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6 minutes ago, KathyC said:

Problem with all the plastic bottles is that there isn't a great demand for the used plastic.  Not enough companies are buying them, so they end up sitting.  Some towns are stopping recycling programs as they can't get rid of what they collect.  Plastic isn't biodegradable, I think it takes 1,000 years to decompose.  If they aren't melted down and reused, then what happens to it?  Landfills. 

Some plastic bottles can decompose within 450 years. But yes Kathy, most plastic including plastic bags take around 1,000 years to decompose. And if you melt them down the chemicals hurts our air quality and possibly the ozone layer. Scary isn’t it? 

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14 hours ago, Oliver said:

Some plastic bottles can decompose within 450 years. But yes Kathy, most plastic including plastic bags take around 1,000 years to decompose. And if you melt them down the chemicals hurts our air quality and possibly the ozone layer. Scary isn’t it? 

Plastic hasn’t existed for 450 years, so how do you know how long it takes to break down?

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I don't care about the bottled water.  If the new carton works, great.  I was skeptical about these paper straws and I was right.  Recently stayed at a Universal Studios resort over Thanksgiving.  Everywhere we went had paper straws.  The paper straws became soggy and off putting immediately.   I started asking for no straw in my drinks and the bartenders were giving me weird looks. Not too sure why.  I will be bringing my own straws with me on our sailings to avoid using the paper ones.  

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On 1/3/2020 at 11:55 AM, monctonguy said:

I hope not....increased cost I am sure...and I thought plastic was recyclable and we all do our due diligence to make sure we put the plastic's in the recycling bins..??!:35_thinking:

 

 

This is actually not fact.  Your "recyclable" plastic used to get sent over to China where it was turned into various other products like benches etc.  Due to China closing those doors your only recyclable containers that are sometimes used anymore are registered as 1 and 2.  Sometimes 5.  But your 3-4, and 6-7 are put into a landfill.  If your worried about cost in regards to a water container, maybe consider drinking tap water instead?

I mean, let's look at Coca Cola.  They are the number one polluter of plastic in the world due to people buying plastic bottles.  You have an ocean full of plastic and you're worried about a few cents?

In essence, most of your plastic ends up in a landfill, which in turn drifts downstream into the ocean.  Then ends up in the food chain.

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On 1/4/2020 at 11:35 AM, TXcruzer said:

Plastic hasn’t existed for 450 years, so how do you know how long it takes to break down?

Scientists have done studies. They know. Here are some sources for you.

 

Drop a ketchup bottle on the floor, and you'll be thankful for polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the nearly indestructible plastic used to make most containers and bottles. Drop the same bottle into a landfill, however, and you might have second thoughts. Why? Because petroleum-based plastics like PET don't decompose the same way organic material does. Wood, grass and food scraps undergo a process known as biodegradation when they're buried, which is a fancy way of saying they're transformed by bacteria in the soil into other useful compounds. But bacteria turn up their noses at plastic. Load their dinner plates with some plastic bags and bottles, and the one-celled gluttons will skip the meal entirely.

Based on this logic, it's safe to argue that plastic will never biodegrade. Of course, that's not the end of the story. Daniel Burd, a student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, recently demonstrated that certain types of bacteria can break down plastic. His research earned the top prize at the Canada-wide Science Fair, earning him $10,000 cash and a $20,000 scholarship [source: Kawawada].Until other researchers can replicate Burd's experiment and waste treatment plants can implement any new processes, the only real way to break down plastic is through photodegradation. This kind of decomposition requires sunlight, not bacteria. When UV rays strike plastic, they break the bonds holding the long molecular chain together. Over time, this can turn a big piece of plastic into lots of little pieces.

Of course, plastic buried in a landfill rarely sees the light of day. But in the ocean, which is where a lot of discarded grocery bags, soft drink bottles and six-pack rings end up, plastic is bathed in as much light as water. In 2009, researchers from Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, found that plastic in warm ocean water can degrade in as little as a year. This doesn't sound so bad until you realize those small bits of plastic are toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomer. These end up in the guts of animals or wash up on shorelines, where humans are most likely to come into direct contact with the toxins.

One solution to this environmental disaster is biodegradable plastic. There are two types currently on the market -- plant-based hydro-biodegradable plastic and petroleum-based oxo-biodegradable plastic. In the former category, polylactic acid (PLA), a plastic made from corn, tops the list as the most talked-about alternative. PLA decomposes into water and carbon dioxide in 47 to 90 days -- four times faster than a PET-based bag floating in the ocean. But conditions have to be just right to achieve these kinds of results. PLA breaks down most efficiently in commercial composting facilities at high temperatures. When buried in a landfill, a plastic bag made from corn may remain intact just as long as a plastic bag made from oil or natural gas.

 Keep reading for more links you might like on plastics.

Related Articles

Sources

  • Gerngross, Tillman U. and Steven C. Slater. "How Green Are Green Plastics?" Scientific American. August 2000.
  • Kawawada, Karen. "WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags." The Record. May 22, 2008. (Nov. 22, 2010)http://news.therecord.com/article/354044
  • Ransford, Matt. "Why Trashing the Oceans is More Dangerous Than We Imagined." Popular Science. April 1, 2008.(Nov.22,2010)http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-04/why-trashing-oceans-more-dangerous-we-imagined
  • Royte, Elizabeth. "Corn Plastic to the Rescue." Smithsonian Magazine. August 2006.http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/plastic.html
  • Shukman, David. "Warning on plastic's toxic threat." BBC News. March 27, 2008. (Nov. 22, 2010)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7316441.stm
  • Sohn, Emily. "Plastic decomposes quickly at sea, study finds." MSNBC. Aug. 20, 2009. (Nov. 22, 2010)http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32493098/ns/us_news-environment/
 
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On ‎01‎/‎06‎/‎2020 at 10:45 PM, Oliver said:

Scientists have done studies. They know. Here are some sources for you.

 

Drop a ketchup bottle on the floor, and you'll be thankful for polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the nearly indestructible plastic used to make most containers and bottles. Drop the same bottle into a landfill, however, and you might have second thoughts. Why? Because petroleum-based plastics like PET don't decompose the same way organic material does. Wood, grass and food scraps undergo a process known as biodegradation when they're buried, which is a fancy way of saying they're transformed by bacteria in the soil into other useful compounds. But bacteria turn up their noses at plastic. Load their dinner plates with some plastic bags and bottles, and the one-celled gluttons will skip the meal entirely.

Based on this logic, it's safe to argue that plastic will never biodegrade. Of course, that's not the end of the story. Daniel Burd, a student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, recently demonstrated that certain types of bacteria can break down plastic. His research earned the top prize at the Canada-wide Science Fair, earning him $10,000 cash and a $20,000 scholarship [source: Kawawada].Until other researchers can replicate Burd's experiment and waste treatment plants can implement any new processes, the only real way to break down plastic is through photodegradation. This kind of decomposition requires sunlight, not bacteria. When UV rays strike plastic, they break the bonds holding the long molecular chain together. Over time, this can turn a big piece of plastic into lots of little pieces.

Of course, plastic buried in a landfill rarely sees the light of day. But in the ocean, which is where a lot of discarded grocery bags, soft drink bottles and six-pack rings end up, plastic is bathed in as much light as water. In 2009, researchers from Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, found that plastic in warm ocean water can degrade in as little as a year. This doesn't sound so bad until you realize those small bits of plastic are toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomer. These end up in the guts of animals or wash up on shorelines, where humans are most likely to come into direct contact with the toxins.

One solution to this environmental disaster is biodegradable plastic. There are two types currently on the market -- plant-based hydro-biodegradable plastic and petroleum-based oxo-biodegradable plastic. In the former category, polylactic acid (PLA), a plastic made from corn, tops the list as the most talked-about alternative. PLA decomposes into water and carbon dioxide in 47 to 90 days -- four times faster than a PET-based bag floating in the ocean. But conditions have to be just right to achieve these kinds of results. PLA breaks down most efficiently in commercial composting facilities at high temperatures. When buried in a landfill, a plastic bag made from corn may remain intact just as long as a plastic bag made from oil or natural gas.

 Keep reading for more links you might like on plastics.

Related Articles

Sources

  • Gerngross, Tillman U. and Steven C. Slater. "How Green Are Green Plastics?" Scientific American. August 2000.
  • Kawawada, Karen. "WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags." The Record. May 22, 2008. (Nov. 22, 2010)http://news.therecord.com/article/354044
  • Ransford, Matt. "Why Trashing the Oceans is More Dangerous Than We Imagined." Popular Science. April 1, 2008.(Nov.22,2010)http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-04/why-trashing-oceans-more-dangerous-we-imagined
  • Royte, Elizabeth. "Corn Plastic to the Rescue." Smithsonian Magazine. August 2006.http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/plastic.html
  • Shukman, David. "Warning on plastic's toxic threat." BBC News. March 27, 2008. (Nov. 22, 2010)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7316441.stm
  • Sohn, Emily. "Plastic decomposes quickly at sea, study finds." MSNBC. Aug. 20, 2009. (Nov. 22, 2010)http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32493098/ns/us_news-environment/
 

Sorry, but the last 2 links (Fennec Fox and the Pooping Man) distracted me too much … lol

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On 1/3/2020 at 10:12 PM, KathyC said:

Problem with all the plastic bottles is that there isn't a great demand for the used plastic.  Not enough companies are buying them, so they end up sitting.  Some towns are stopping recycling programs as they can't get rid of what they collect.  Plastic isn't biodegradable, I think it takes 1,000 years to decompose.  If they aren't melted down and reused, then what happens to it?  Landfills. 

Same here in my town on Cape Cod, Mass.  No recycling (any type) at the landfill.  Word is the curbside goes to the landfill...…    ?

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

On Vision of the Seas in October our water was in cans or in glass bottles.  Only had plastic when I had Vitamin water or Powerade.  I wish that they could make drinks in metal cups and if you have a reusable cup such as Yetti, Hydroflask etc.. they could pour it in there.  Then they could rinse out the metal cup and reuse it.  In stead they give you your drink in the plastic cup and you pour it in yourself and the plastic glass just goes into the garbage.

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