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They say cruise ship passengers put on a pound a day while sailing, but that’s not nearly as much as they’re leaving behind.

Those all-you-can-eat buffets and open bars add up to a lot of waste, and when you’re out at sea, it has to go somewhere. For cruise ships operators, that usually means dumping sewage in the open ocean—which is legal.

Cruise ships dump about 1 billion gallons of sewage overboard every year, and much of it is raw or poorly treated, according to federal data acquired by the environmental group Friends of the Earth.

The watchdog group released a report card looking at the 16 biggest cruise line companies, giving each one letter grades for sewage treatment, air pollution reductions, and water quality compliance. FOE also assigned individual grades to each of the 167 cruise ships in operation.

The 2014 report found a steady improvement for cruise lines sailing newer, energy-efficient ships. But 40 percent of the global cruise ship fleet is outfitted with waste-treatment technology more than 35 years old.  Read more at http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/12/08/big-number-shows-just-how-damaging-cruise-ships-are-worlds-oceans