On April 10, 2025, whereas docked in Lyttelton, New Zealand, the 129,500 gross ton Superstar Edge emitted a cloud of fumes that was alarming to locals.
Dwelling to only 2,859 residents, the small port city enjoys the financial increase from the rise of cruise tourism within the space.
In February 2011, a strong earthquake in neighboring Canterbury precipitated important harm to Lyttelton Harbour, making it unable to berth cruise ships.
Nevertheless, the nation’s first-ever purpose-built cruise ship berth was opened right here in November 2020, and now hosts vessels resembling the two,908 passenger Superstar Edge.
In accordance with native information experiences, the world’s environmental authorities, Surroundings Canterbury (ECan), acquired many calls from the general public about an alarming quantity of exhaust coming from the docked ship.
A spokesperson from ECan shared that they had been carefully monitoring the scenario and dealing carefully with Maritime NZ, a company that’s accountable for stopping air air pollution from vessels.
The Lyttelton Port Firm (LPC) additionally instantly contacted Superstar Edge after considerations had been raised by the locals.
An LPC spokesperson confirmed that the ship has a closed-loop exhaust cleansing system, which neutralizes smoke pollution earlier than they’re emitted again out into the open.
Nonetheless, LPC is selecting to observe the air emissions across the port, specializing in particle matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides.
As soon as the monitoring course of is full, outcomes will probably be shared with the neighborhood. There is no such thing as a timeline on when that data will probably be launched but, but when the closed-loop exhaust cleansing system did its job, likelihood is the outcomes will probably be no trigger for alarm.
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One of many involved residents Zoë Brock took to social media to share her ideas on the scenario, emphasizing that even when it would simply look like steam it may very well be affecting folks’s well being.
“If these ships are going to proceed to return right here, one resolution is to drive them to plug in – as they do in lots of locations like Vancouver, LA, Brooklyn, San Diego, Seattle, and even Miami,” Brock added, making an attempt to hunt out an answer.
Lyttelton Harbour doesn’t at the moment have shore energy capabilities, so sadly, this may not be an answer until the port determined so as to add this sustainable characteristic.
Superstar Edge is at the moment on a 12-night round-trip cruise out of Sydney, Australia — and is at the moment underway to its fourth cease in Tauranga the place it would arrive on April 12, 2025.
Aside from Lyttelton, there have additionally already been stops in Dunedin and Fiordland Nationwide Park. The vessel can even name on ports in Auckland and the Bay of Islands earlier than returning to Sydney on April 17.
The excellent news for this small city is that the subsequent ship set to reach in Lyttelton will probably be Carnival Splendor in October 2025, so they won’t be seeing extra cruise or emission points for a while.
The Smoke Strikes Once more
What do Superstar Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line have in widespread? They each had ships with heavy smoke emissions in 2025!
On February 26, 2025, the 4,200 passenger Norwegian Epic was noticed emitting an enormous plume of white smoke whereas docked in Tortola, British Virgin Islands.
Just like Lyttelton Harbour, the Tortola Cruise Port doesn’t have shore energy capabilities — that means that ships should depend on their very own onboard energy programs to supply the electrical energy essential to function.
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Because of this course of, mills emit steam and smoke, however most trendy cruise ships have scrubbers to assist scale back emissions of dangerous chemical substances, as talked about above.
Norwegian Epic, similar to Superstar Edge, has these scrubbers in order that they adjust to the requirements put in place by the Worldwide Maritime Group (IMO).
The Environmental Well being Division (EHD) evaluated the emissions in Tortola and concluded that no dangerous chemical substances had been being launched.
Likelihood is that, given each ships use the identical scrubbing system, the outcomes from the testing completed in Lyttelton will come again much like the ultimate report from the EHD in Tortola.
