ESPO welcomed the development towards better enforcement and less administrative burden under the new Port Reception Facilities Directive, as agreed between the Parliament and the Council on 12 December. However, it regrets that the polluter will not fully pay the cost.
The new Directive makes administrative procedures faster, addresses discrepancies between EU and international law and aims at higher level of environmental protection. However, the polluter will not fully pay the cost.
As all ships will pay a flat fee irrespective of the waste they generate under the new system, a cap on the quantities covered by this flat fee would discourage the generation and delivery of unreasonable quantities of garbage
ESPO states.
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The Parliament and the Council have put a limit on the quantities that can be delivered for a flat flee, but it is possible that either the ports or responsible ships will pay for unreasonable quantities of garbage delivered by other ships.
Namely, Isabelle Ryckbost, ESPO’s Secretary General believes that the new law does not include any provisions to prevent an increased waste generation onboard and to make ships pay for the delivery of unreasonable amounts at the ports.
Continuing, ESPO also welcomed the differentiated fees on the basis of the hazardous nature of the waste and the fact that the Parliament and the Council improved the proposal of the Commission about the communication of the fee systems in the waste reception and handling plans. Specifically, only the structure of the costs and a description of the cost recovery systems will be communicated to the port users.
Another aspect that ESPO welcomed is the separate collection of ship waste which should be organised on the basis of the EU law and that food packaging including plastic waste from intra-EU journeys could now be recycled. The new law incorporates exemptions for small non-commercial ports as well as for remotely located and small ports with unmanned facilities.
Nevertheless, ESPO is opposed to the fact that green rebates for ships have become mandatory. It mentioned that there are no safeguards that ships able for these rebates will deliver effectively less waste at port level under the new law. What is more, mandatory rebates do not consider different business and governance models in ports across Europe.
Currently, more than half of the European ports have introduced green rebates to address local environmental challenges.
