E-PORTS Shipping Agency Column 丨Marine Pollution Treatment is Pressing, How can Bilge Water be Cleaned up?

Marine transportation plays an important role in global trade. As the carrier that undertakes transportation - ships, while bringing energy, mineral resources and inexpensive goods to people, they also discharge a large amount of pollutants into the ocean, such as oil effluent and domestic waste, etc. According to incomplete statistics, only just in decade from 2002 to 2012 , the world has produced more plastic waste than the entire Data from 2018, which?shows that the ratio of plastic to plankton in the oceans has reached 1:2, causing an annual loss of up to US$13 billion to marine ecosystems. If there is no action taken, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish, with devastating effects on marine ecosystems and even human society. Therefore, the protection of the marine environment is receiving attention from countries and international organisations around the world. It is urgent to strengthen the management of marine environmental pollution from ship discharges and domestic waste on board.

What are the Marine pollution made from ships?

Emissions from ships in the sea that cause water pollution include sludge water, domestic sewage, sewage containing toxic liquid substances and ship garbage. And these ship sewage or garbage must be discharged or dumped within the prescribed limits, and those who dump bilge water or other garbage illegally will be fined a huge amount.

General vessel?garbage disposal: Ships shall store general garbage centrally and deliver it to port reception facilities or entrust water reception units to receive it after arriving at the port.

• Vessel domestic sewage disposal: Vessels?domestic sewage can be discharged into port reception facilities or entrusted to water reception units, and can also be discharged if it can meet?the standard after disposed?by vessel domestic sewage disposal?devices during navigation (inland navigation vessels are generally not allowed to discharge during navigation).
• Sewage containing toxic liquid substances?disposal: It can only be discharged into port reception facilities.
• sludge water?in vessels disposal: vessels can discharge into port reception facilities or entrust water reception units to receive it, or discharge after being disposed?by oil-water separator to meet the standard during navigation (inland navigation vessels are generally not allowed to discharge during navigation).
• Under the new Chinese regulations, international owners and operators of vessels carrying oil or dangerous goods or over 10,000 gross tons must pre-contract with an approved SPRO (Ship Pollution Response Organization) prior to entering Chinese ports. By contracting with SRSOC, ship owners and operators will comply and meet all requirements of the new Chinese MSA (Maritime Safety Authority) regulations.

Traditional equipment is hard to meet the discharge standards of sludge water

One of the waste water discharged by ships is bilge water, which is a mixture of foul and oily water generated from brine, cooling water, fuel and lubricating oil leaks, dewatering of settling tanks and sludge tanks, emissions from various cleaning processes, and soot and dirt particles collected in bilge wells on ships or vessels. Before it can be discharged into the sea, IMO regulations require that this kind of explosive mixture must be treated in depth to a residual oil content of less than 15 ppm. Bilge water containing oil is a hazardous waste and it is illegal for terminals to discharge it into the water.

Vessels can equip some traditional equipment to separate the bilge water, such as oil gasket, Vacuum systems for bilge water removal, water-oil separators, etc., but with little success. Bilge water or rather ship's foul water are treated by??specialised agencies in a high-tech way in order to meet the required requirements economically and efficiently, but this approach takes away from the berthing time of the ship.

The role of vessel agency in disposing sludge water

The following steps are usually required to dispose of polluting liquids such as foul water or other bilge water when a ship is in port:

• Confirmation from shipowners/Husbandry
• Seal of the shipping agent
• Declaration by shipping agents to the Maritime Administration——?Customs Declaration——Processing at frontier checkpoints
• Ship by port
• Sludge water?disposal industry or receiving equipment
• Departure of ship

Shipping agent has not only coordinated with the ship owners and the sludge water?disposal agency, but also determined the exact time of docking and berthing of the ship, the operating hours in port, the time of departure from berth, clarifying the end time of the ship's Sanitation, border inspection and joint inspection, the presence of dangerous goods operations, whether they will affect normal port operations and other relevant ship operations.

After confirming the condition of ships, the shipping agent shall deliver the 《Conformation for Marine Pollutants Receiving. Safe Operation of Clearing and Antifouling》confirmed by the ship owner to the sludge water?disposal agency and start the pollution cleaning operations.

After the completion of the operation, the shipping agent is required to deliver the 《Certificate of Receipt and Disposal of Oil Residues from Ships》 issued by the Marine Bureau?to the master or the ship owner.

It can be said that the shipping agent is involved in all steps of this service, except for not being involved in the specific sludge water disposal process, and has to be closely connected to each step to avoid the ship staying in port for a long time and increasing the cost of the business, and is a link between the ship and the business side.

E-PORTS Bilge Water Disposal Service

E-PORTS Shipping agency service can help ship managers with Bilge Water Disposal, Garbage Disposal, Sludge Disposal etc. E-PORTS works closely with?maritime, customs, border control and environmental authorities and works with shipping companies that specialise in receiving sludge water ships. According to the actual situation of the ship, E-PORTS remind ship owners of the various inspections and certificate renewals that need to be carried out on their vessels to ensure that they are legal and seaworthy at all times.

E-PORTS specifically reminds crew members not to discharge ship's sewage, garbage, bilge water and other ship's waste water into the sea, as they will not only face huge fines but may also be in breach of the law~

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