How Ponant Is Improving What Happens to Waste After It Leaves the Ship
After finding that carefully sorted shipboard waste was ending up in landfill, the cruise operator began working with ports to close the gaps.
Photo: Damien Decaix
Aboard Paul Gauguin, the crew sorted waste for recycling. On shore in Papeete, they mixed some of it back together and sent it to landfill. For Ponant Explorations, the discovery exposed a problem that onboard recycling bins alone couldn’t solve.
That disconnect (and the work to address it) is among the more revealing examples behind the company’s latest sustainability announcement. Released October 26 alongside its 2025 Sustainability Report, the update puts fleetwide waste recovery at 49 percent, up from 13 percent in 2023 and approaching its 50 percent target for 2026. Recovery includes recycling, reuse, and energy recovery.
The Papeete assessment, conducted with Bureau Veritas, traced the breakdown partly to opaque bags used during unloading. Despite sorting on the ship, materials weren’t staying separated through the shoreside process. Ponant brought together the crew, port agent, carrier and local sorting facility to revise procedures and improve coordination. According to the company’s latest announcement, the recycling rate for waste unloaded there reached 60 percent in 2026.
For a ship that calls at Papeete more than 50 times a year, getting that process right has recurring benefits.
“We have set ourselves ambitious targets to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill, promote the recycling of materials and support local waste management and treatment networks,” said Wassim Daoud, Ponant Explorations’ head of CSR and sustainability. “Achieving these objectives depends on our ability to bring together those working on the ground to roll out reliable tools and scalable solutions.”
The work extends beyond French Polynesia. Ponant and Bureau Veritas have examined waste handling at 10 ports responsible for half the waste unloaded across the fleet’s approximately 150 ports of call. Assessments followed the chain from dockside collection to treatment facilities.
Ponant also reported eliminating nearly 24 tons of single-use plastic in 2025, including drinking-water fountains and glass bottles onboard. A separate collaboration with Greek environmental specialist Antipollution is informing fleetwide training on waste handling, storage and sorting.
The next step is to extend those improvements across more ports, where local facilities ultimately determine how much of the fleet’s sorted waste can be recovered.
