Headhunter’s sewage treatment plants are installed on nearly the whole Galapagos fleet, according to Mark Mellinger, vice president. Installations include the Silversea Galapagos and the Santa Cruz among other vessels, as well as the Uncruise Wilderness Explorer and Discoverer that sail in Alaska.

The Florida-based company also installs its systems on offshore platforms, rigs and vessels, and yachts.

“Our systems comply with MEPC.227(64) including section 4.2 for nutrient reduction on passenger vessels in special areas,” Mellinger explained.

“We use the HMX three-stage process incorporating separation, disinfection and polish of the water. The process is well suited for treatment of black water only, mixed black and gray, or gray water only. The last stage is the granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration, which is best for mitigating surfactants in the gray water.”

In municipal plants, GAC installations handle as much as 32 million gallons of wastewater per day in Niagara Falls, New York, for example.

“One stand-out feature of our process is that a separate sludge storage tank is not required. Sludge is collected in the bottom of the same tank collecting the sewage. This also makes retrofits to existing vessels much easier.”

He said the Headhunter equipment can handle 100 to 125 gallons of combined wastewater per person per day and can be scaled up for the largest cruise ships.

A recent contract was the installation on one of the world’s largest offshore drilling rigs launched by China Oil Field Services for operation in Arctic waters.