Food waste, domestic and operational effluents generated during normal ship operation, cargo residues, sewage, oil mixtures and noxious liquid substances all need to be facilitated and most ports now have a waste management plan that includes information on costs, availability and the type of facilities on offer.

However, the disposal of ship-generated waste at port remains a complex and contentious issue. The major concern is that current MARPOL regulations, while stipulating that ports and harbours are required to provide adequate solutions, do not offer incentives for ships to deliver their waste streams to ports – as such, some less-than-conscientious ship operators are still discharging illegally, according to Jens Peter Øhlenschlæger, project director, port environment, for Denmark-based waste management service provider Grontmij - Carl Bro A/S.

“Some ships continue to discharge illegally; some ports don’t provide adequate facilities; there is no costs transparency and the fee system is complicated,” he says.

Indeed, much of the industry-wide concern and possible solutions have been succinctly detailed in a Carl Bro report for the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

In the document, which addresses the availability and use of port reception facilities for ship generated-waste, its authors find that “the overall picture shows [the issue is] very complex, scattered and, in some cases, confused”.

The conclusions published at the latter end of 2006, almost a year after the research began, suggests the European Union Directive 59/2000, with its objective of establishing sound port/ship waste guidelines, has fallen short of its intended purpose because “ports have interpreted the Directive in different ways, leading to some confusion among stakeholders (ships, shipping agents, waste operators and environmental authorities). Most ports and ships have shown therefore a strong wish to have more detailed and clear and uniform guidelines, when these are not provided by central or regional government," the report concludes.

Carl Bro recommends: guidelines should specify the role of the Port Authority in waste management; cost recovery details (including principles and methods for calculation and fees); and a contractual framework with waste operators. It should also include a common delivery certificate which, according to Carl Bro, almost all European ports have requested in order to avoid fraud.

In the UK, where Associated British Ports operates 21 of the country’s ports and harbours, the regulations are rigidly enforced and it is not uncommon for the Port Authority (PA) to come down hard and prosecute those that flout MARPOL or EU requirements. However, any suggestion that commercial port authorities should actually enforce and police the requirement is anathema to ABP.

As Peter Barham, ABP’s Sustainable Development Manager, says: “We expect all ships to notify us of their intent of the waste disposal requirements before it arrives and we have always provided facilities for ships to get rid of their waste… but it is not for ABP to police it…. There have been moves to get Port Authorities to [enforce the requirement] but it is not our [the commercial PA’s] role to be the policemen…. I would be loathed to see greater responsibility on commercial ports to do this. Governments need to enforce it, not the Port Authorities.”

Skulduggery and backhanders

Speaking to Port Strategy, Richard Trafford, formerly of Tilbury Environmental Group, whose work in Ghana resulted in the region’s first IMO-compliant port waste reception facilities being installed at the Port of Tema, believes that policing the waste management process, especially outside of developed nations, is “haphazard”.

He believes that the current system leaves itself open to “skulduggery”, commenting that he has seen some ship operators openly offer “backhanders” to port officials to dispose of ship’s waste through irregular channels or to “turn a blind eye” to effluents being pumped into harbour.

Mr Trafford recalls a case in September 2006 when thousands of people from around the city of Abidjan, Ivory Coast were admitted to hospital after exposure to waste dumped into a lagoon by a Panama-registered ship. It was reported that highly toxic hydrogen sulphide was discharged after the authorities gave the ship permission to dump the waste, apparently believing it was sewage. Fearing an environmental scandal, the Ivory Coast Prime Minister sacked his entire Cabinet.

For its part, IMO is aware that more needs to be done and work is ongoing to produce an “Action Plan” to tackle the inadequacy of port reception facilities. IMO Member States have also been requested to provide their views on how regional arrangements could be better institutionalised for when MEPC 57 sits in spring 2008.

The Plan contains a list of proposed work items to be undertaken with the aim of improving the provision and use of adequate port reception facilities, including items relating to reporting requirements; provision of information on port reception facilities; identification of any technical problems encountered during the transfer of waste between ship and shore and the standardisation of garbage segregation requirements and containment identification; review of the type and amount of wastes generated onboard and the type and capacity of port reception facilities; revision of the IMO Comprehensive Manual on Port Reception Facilities; and development of a Guide to Good Practice on Port Reception Facilities.

Limited information

But as of February 2007 only a small number of Member States had entered information on to the IMO’s Port Reception Facilities Database (PRFD), a module of the Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS), and there was scant information on certain categories of reception facilities.

Data so far recorded is: 184 garbage reception facilities in nine countries (140 facilities in five countries in May 2006); 130 sewage reception facilities in seven countries (102 facilities in four countries in May 2006); 11 ozone-depleting substances reception facilities in two countries (10 facilities in one country in May 2006); and 22 exhaust gas cleaning residues reception facilities in 2 countries (the same as in May 2006).

For the PRFD to have a real potential to improve the situation on the inadequacy of reception facilities, the database has to be used routinely by the industry and for this to happen the database has to be populated extensively with records of reception facilities worldwide and, ideally, with contact points in Administrations of Flag and Port States. More importantly, shippers have to be made to use these facilities.