NGOs Call for Ban on Scrubber Discharge in Northern Europe

 

A coalition of environmental groups has called for a regional ban on scrubber washwater discharge in Northern Europe, citing the known pollutants in exhaust-cleaning waste streams. 

Some nations have already banned scrubber discharge water in their territorial seas, including Denmark and Sweden. Denmark's environment ministry has identified many substances of concern in scrubber washwater, including lead, cadmium, nickel, and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) anthracene and benz(a)pyrene, among others. The agency says that these metals and tar-like substances can accumulate on the seabed and in ocean food chains. 

In an appeal to the 16 signatories of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention), a group of a dozen European environmental groups - led by German NGO NABU - asked for a scrubber ban to be put into effect region-wide, and in short order. NABU indicated that such a ban is under consideration among OSPAR's members, but that some parties are interested in delaying it until there is consensus at IMO. A delay would help keep down costs for shipping in EU waters, and IMO could take years or decades to settle on a regulation.  

"Given the nature of EGCS wastewater and the established risks, waiting for consensus at the IMO would be a missed opportunity for OSPAR to exercise leadership in protecting the North-East Atlantic," said NABU in the petition. "Coastal states have the right to ban discharges within their territorial waters, and the rights of shipowners to pollute should not outweigh the rights of coastal states to protect these waters."

NABU called for OSPAR to adopt a uniform ban on scrubber discharge within the 12-mile territorial seas line for all of the convention's signatory states (except for Switzerland and Luxembourg, which do not have territorial seas.)

The Baltic is of particular concern, since it has only limited circulation with the open ocean. Researchers at Chalmers University estimate that more than 200 million cubic meters of scrubber washwater is discharged into the Baltic every year, and suggest that the washwater accounts for nearly a tenth of all releases of certain carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into the Baltic. 

For shipping, scrubbers are an advantage: they are a cost-saving alternative to very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO), allowing vessels to legally burn higher-sulfur heavy fuel oil (HFO) at a significant discount. Scrubbers save the industry an estimated $5 billion per year on fuel costs, according to the Chalmers study.