Royal Caribbean Cruise Line turns over a new leaf

Royal Caribbean, a cruise line fined millions of dollars in the past few years for polluting the sea, has built state-of-the-art labs for pollution research on its new ship, Explorer of the Seas.

The world's No 2 cruise company and the University of Miami have unveiled a multimillion dollar project to collect data from air and ocean as the Explorer of the Seas - which boasts an ice-rink and a rock-climbing wall - voyages from Miami around the Caribbean, stopping in Haiti, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas.

Royal Caribbean, which last year paid a $US18 million ($45 million) fine for dumping oily bilgewater and chemicals, provided $US3 million to support the research.