Why reception facilities matter - BIMCO

Posted September 27, 2010 - BIMCO

The Marine Pollution Convention is an international treaty that helps to keep the seas clean, regularly kept up to date and enhanced to take into account all the substances, from oil to garbage, that might pollute the sea. All ships must comply with the provisions of the convention and its protocols, and the marine environment is far cleaner as a result.
But there is no getting away from the fact that ships do generate their own polluting substances, from waste oil and oily water mixtures that are left over from lubricating and fueling the ship, to the garbage that is generated by the crew and passengers. In a big passenger ship, there is sewage and “grey water” that has to be dealt with.
Ships, which many years ago would have merely tipped these wastes into the sea, now have to retain them on board. Many vessels, especially modern passenger ships, are very expert at treating these wastes, compacting solid wastes, incinerating that which could be burned, saving up what can be recycled and treating sewage. In fact, ships are far more “self-contained” than they ever have been, and most ships will carefully segregate their wastes aboard ship.
But they still need to offload waste materials when they reach harbor, and under the terms of the MARPOL Convention, ports have an obligation to have available waste reception facilities, to hopefully provide these at a reasonable price, and to ensure that the wastes a ship wishes to land are dealt with.
Sadly, all too many ports are failing in their obligations in this respect, either by not having the necessary reception facilities or making it costly or inconvenient to deal with them. This places an unfair burden upon ships, which have to retain their wastes for longer than they might wish, and upon other compliant ports, who end up having to receive more than they might if all ports played their part in this important process.
There is little, it seems, that can be done to persuade these recalcitrant ports to provide themselves with adequate reception facilities. BIMCO closely monitors the situation, voices its concerns at IMO and uses its high level contacts with administrations to encourage their ports to provide a proper service to ships. Eventually, perhaps, there will be a far higher degree of self containment, but oily and solid wastes, food waste and recyclables will require the use of reception facilities for the foreseeable future.

https://www.bimco.org/en/Corporate/Education/Seascapes/Sea_View/Why_reception_facilities_matter.aspx