On Wednesday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) revealed that more than 50% of the cruise ships, which are traveling in the Baltic Sea, are dumping their toilet water and their sewage in general straight into sea water. The cruise ships are dumping their wastes in the sea, the WWF said, despite the fact that they have access to official disposal services and their promises to use the port facilities to dispose their waste water.

Besides blaming the cruise ships, Vanessa Kloetzer, a marine expert at the WWF, also blamed the law for not providing any protection against the phenomenon of the black water. According to Kloetzer, some piece of legislation is missing. Kloetzer also added that the WWF would be raising the issue at the international meeting, which it would be holding by the next week. The WWF would discuss having a ban on black water dumping in the area around the northern European sea.

Robert Ashdown, the ECC's environmental spokesman, stated that all the members of the ECC are committed to the environment protection and voluntarily disposing of the waste water through official facilities.

He said, "It's more likely the case that the ships that aren't using the services aren't ECC members, or they have facilities to store waste until they reach another port".