The European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) adopted several critical amendments to a European Commission proposal to address pollution from ships in European waters. Negotiations with the Council of the European Union are now set to begin in early November.
Today the European Commission released a long awaited proposal for a revised law to govern the delivery of waste from ships in ports and fishing harbours. The proposal contains vital changes in how ships will deliver waste in ports and pay for it, changes that have long been campaigned for by environmental NGOs concerned with the impacts of waste dumping on the oceans.
Brussels – today the European Commission adopted a new Circular Economy package, including a commitment to continue to work on the EU headline marine litter reduction target, and to develop a strategy on plastics in the Circular Economy.
OSPAR today adopted its long-awaited Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter, designed to promote concerted action to reduce marine litter in the NE Atlantic. Seas At Risk regrets that the plan fails to set quantifiable reduction targets or to provide strong solutions to counter this increasingly worrying problem.
In a surprisingly swift response to civil society concerns about recent spills of PIB in the English Channel, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has agreed to reclassify the chemical and stop its routine discharge.
The Port Reception Facilities (PRF) Directive is due to be reviewed by 2014, and Seas At Risk has been working with IEEP to identify how the Directive can be improved to effectively tackle a significant source of marine litter.
The Port Reception Facilities (PRF) Directive is due to be reviewed by 2014, and Seas At Risk has been working with IEEP to identify how the Directive can be improved to effectively tackle a significant source of marine litter.
Environmental NGOs have called on the International Maritime Organisation to review the hazard classification of PIB following two spills in the English Channel and the deaths of thousands of sea birds.
Covered in a sticky substance and unable to move, hundreds of seabirds have been found washed up along the South coast of Britain with experts speculating ship waste dumping as the likely source.
At a conference exploring the use of Port Reception Facilites, Seas At Risk has made a plea for the removal of existing economic disincentives for ships to discharge their waste at EU ports in order to turn Europe into a hub for handling ship waste.
Speaking at a public hearing in the European Parliament, Seas At Risk has called on MEPs to help clean up the shipping sector and tackle ship waste dumping at sea.
Environmental groups have welcomed the deal announced by European Parliament representatives, the EC and EU member states to reduce the sulphur content of marine fuels. The deal now needs to be approved formally by the Council and Parliament.
Seas At Risk member organisation and Italy’s largest environmental group Legambiente, has raised concerns about potential ecological damage in waters surrounding the stricken Costa Concordia cruise vessel as the removal of on-board fuel begins
In response to the European Commission’s consultation on Port Reception Facilities, SAR has called for a list of regulatory improvements in order to better protect against oily waste discharges and the build of marine litter from ship waste dumping.
In what is the second outrageous conviction for ship waste dumping this year, a little known Liberian company has been charged $700,000 for dumping oily waste; highlighting the shocking measures some operators take to avoid delivering waste to port facilities.
NGOs are cautiously celebrating substantial revisions to global ship waste rules, as adopted at the IMO last week. NGOs are however concerned about loopholes and the likely inability of governments to properly enforce the new regulations.
The European Commission has launched a long awaited public consultation on port reception facilities, an important step as part of the review of Directive 2000/59 which has the potential to significantly prevent ship waste dumping.
The umbrella group ‘NGO Shipbreaking Platform’ is calling on Bangladesh to refuse entry and dismantling of the Probo Koala ship – the vessel that became infamous in the case of 528 tonnes of toxic waste being dumped in the Ivory Coast in 2006.
The NGOs are concerned that the ship will be broken down in an unsafe and environmentally damaging manner because of expectations that the Probo Koala contains many tonnes of hazardous asbestos, PCBs, toxic paints, fuel and chemical residues. In 2010, a Dutch court found the multinational company Trafigura guilty of illegally exporting toxic waste from Amsterdam in the Probo Koala. Two months after the waste was dumped in Abidijan, the largest city in the Ivory Coast, over 107,000 people had been registered as having been affected by it. According to the Ivorian authorities, 16 people died as a result of their exposure to the waste. Seas At Risk member organisation, the North Sea Foundation is a member of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
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