Progress to reduce pollution at sea

The provision of adequate waste reception facilities at ports, and the technical and practical matters associated with it, requires attention in the future, agreed the Industry Reception Facilities Forum at its fifth meeting in London on 18 October. The forum membership includes BIMCO, InterCargo and InterTanko.

There still remain a number of more practical problems that need addressing before the operation of discharging ship waste to shore is a straightforward and streamlined process, believes the Forum, which is at the same time pushing for the development of a harmonised advance notification form, and waste receipt form, as positive steps in facilitating the flow of information between the ship and shore.

To achieve this, the Forum has agreed to establish a small working group of technical specialists from both the shore and ship side of the industry to discuss openly the problems and to suggest ways in which they can be overcome. Based on the progress already achieved in raising the profile of these problems outside the reporting procedures traditionally focused on by the IMO, the Forum is confident that further progress can be made at this more specialised and detailed level.

A strong line of communication has been established between the Industry Forum and the IMO Secretariat which is acting as observer at the Forum. This has helped significantly in providing input into the IMO by the Members of the Forum. The IMO is now in the process of establishing an action plan to tackle the inadequacy of port reception facilities, based largely on the action plan established by the Forum.

The Forum met for the first time in 2004. It was a first step in bringing together the port, reception facility and shipping industries specifically to overcome the problems associated with port reception facilities for ship waste. It has gone on to provide a platform for gaining a more detailed understanding of the problems faced by both the facility users and the facility providers. The Forum initially identified key areas of concern from both the ports and shipping industries and set about providing solutions on an international level. In doing so it is following the IMO?s lead in encouraging contact between these two main sectors.

The Forum hopes to increase the availability and adequacy of port waste reception facilities and to encourage their use, in the broader context of maintaining cleaner seas through the reduction of marine pollution.