Waste reception
Regulation and control must inevitably be accompanied by the development of waste reception facilities. Many tanker ports are now equipped with a specialised reception station (deballasting station), but many of the stations in poorer countries are insufficient or out of service, their tanks full of semi-solidified oily sludge. As these countries have no pollution surveillance resources for their coasts, it remains very tempting for ship operators to discharge oily waste from their vessels in these areas.
More information
Deballasting stations are reception and recycling facilities for
bilge residues and waste waters with which all the world’s ports should
be equipped to take oily waste from vessels in port for a stopover or for
repairs. This oily waste, stored onboard vessels in designated tanks (slop
tanks), is pumped into the station’s reservoirs, where it is separated
from the seawater and solid
waste it contains by settling.
They oily fraction is sent to a refinery
for recycling or is directly reused if it is mainly composed of
heavy fuel oil. After purification, the water is returned to the natural
environment.
Deballasting stations are classified facilities, with discharge standards
which must be respected, autosurveillance procedures
and periodic checks.
A case of illegal discharge
On 24 March 1998, a Royal Air Force aircraft, whilst on a routine patrol,
observed the Norwegian liquid petroleum
gas carrier the MT Havrim illegally polluting off the west coast of the
Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The crew photographed the slick, estimated to
be seven miles long and 300 yards wide, and reported it to Stornaway Coastguard.
The report was immediately passed on to the Marine Pollution Control Unit.
The Marine Safety Agency was alerted and two surveyors boarded the vessel
on her arrival in Pembroke, Wales. The tanker was subsequently detained
and the owner put up a bank guarantee of £255,000. At an emergency
court hearing on 30 March 1998, the owners were fined a total of £20,000
for illegal discharge of engine oil bilges.