Seafarers are used to being exploited. At sea, the captain moans at chandlers who supply ships with green bananas that will never ripen; at fruit that goes moldy obscenely fast; at sub-standard meat. — Rose George Copy Share Image
The biggest container ship can carry fifteen thousand boxes. It can hold 746 million bananas, one for every European, on one ship. — Rose George Copy Share Image
I went down to the sewers in London and looked at a campaigning group in London called RATS, Rowers Against Thames Sewage, and I… — Rose George Copy Share
The Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), which controls the living environment on shuttles and on the International Space Station, doesn't have the… — Rose George Copy Share
Diarrhoea is the reason you can have a malnourished child in a well-fed family. — Rose George Copy Share
“Mr. Wang had found my interest in fen, the Mandarin word for excrement, peculiar. Nonetheless, he tried to be helpful. He would point out… — Rose George Copy Share
Sending a container from Shanghai to Le Havre emits fewer greenhouse gases than the truck that takes the container on to Lyon. — Rose George Copy Share
Seafaring can be lucrative - the elite, such as gas-tanker captains, can earn $100,000 for six months' work - but the isolation is a… — Rose George Copy Share
Before containers, transport costs ate up 25 percent of the value of whatever was being shipped. — Rose George Copy Share
A humpback can transmit a sound across a whole ocean. But a supertanker can also be heard coming across a whole ocean, and because… — Rose George Copy Share
The days of languorous shore leave are long gone. Overnight stays are unheard of and sailor towns a distant memory. In better ports, seafarers… — Rose George Copy Share
Rules governing defecation, hygiene, and pollution exist in every culture at every period in history. It may in fact be the foundation of civilization:… — Rose George Copy Share
Light doesn't penetrate beneath the surface of the water, so ocean creatures like whales and dolphins and even 800 species of fish communicate by… — Rose George Copy Share
My mother watched her loving husband look at her with blankness or contempt and sometimes hatred. And yet dementia is classed as a social… — Rose George Copy Share
I find Suez astonishing for the first hour. It is a ditch in a desert, but a stunning one. The sensation of being hemmed… — Rose George Copy Share
There are few industries as defiantly opaque as shipping. Even offshore bankers have not developed a system as intricately elusive as the flag of… — Rose George Copy Share
I'd grown up thinking that a [sanitary toilet] was my right, when in fact it's a privilege - 2.5 billion people worldwide have no… — Rose George Copy Share
