Scrubber waste collection at French port

To offer concrete solutions to shipping companies that choose to use scrubbers, HAROPA – Port of Le Havre partnered with the port-based SEREP, a subsidiary of SARP Industries, to set up a collection and treatment service for scrubber waste. The waste from ship exhaust fume purifiers is taken by truck to a treatment and recovery centre for processing. To encourage ships to deposit their liquid waste and scrubber residues on site, the port takes on 30% of the cost of waste collecting.

“Alongside the world maritime shipping actors, the Port of Le Havre has engaged in an ambitious ecological transition to reduce the carbon footprint of its activities on the environment,” said Baptiste Maurand, managing director of HAROPA – Port of Le Havre

“Among the actions carried out, there is the development of a scrubber residues industry. To promote and make it sustainable, we have also set up a financial incentive for our customers, taking in charge 30% of the cost of collecting liquid waste including scrubber residues.”

Le Havre has been in the SECA (Sulphur Emission Control Area) since 2015. This means the sulphur (SOx) emission rates must not exceed 0.1%. Ships sailing and docked in the port must either use fuels containing no more than 0.1% sulphur, or be fitted with a closed-loop scrubber system to filter and wash exhaust fumes.

The scrubber waste collection service builds on SEREP’s SWC (Service Waste Collection), developed in 2011 to provide a local response to the needs of ships in port. SEREP is currently finalising a short-circuit recovery project for hydrocarbons collected from ships.