15 Carnival Corporation ships are trialling food waste bio-digester machines which are able to separate plastic from food waste, while breaking down the food, reducing the ship’s carbon footprint.
Specifically, as food scraps are entered into the system, a mix of microorganisms, including microbes and enzymes, rapidly and naturally digest the organic waste, with the machines working 24 hours a day, enabling an unstoppable “food digestion”.
Additionally, the cruise company is trialling three different bio-digester machines, including systems that can evaluate a variety of parameters and produce data, including the weight and volume of food waste digested, the net food waste reduced and the amount of CO2 reduced.
The data resulting from the tests can be automatically uploaded to a cloud server and then be remotely monitored.
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The machines decrease a ship’s carbon footprint by using an aerobic digestion process to break down food particles, releasing a translucent, environmentally safe liquid, mitigating GHG emissions from conventional food waste processing systems.
It is reported that 12 additional ships are planned to be equipped with the system in the near future, across seven of the corporation’s nine cruise line brands – Carnival Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Holland America Line, P&O Cruises (UK), Princess Cruises and Seabourn.
Another example of dealing with food waste is Viking Line’s Mariella who is re-using the food waste remaining on the vessel, achieving an estimated 27 tonnes over a period of four months.
