After the EU Commission informed that it will adopt a new proposal to reduce the ships’ waste, ESPO released an announcement, welcoming the new proposal and the objective that it wants to achieve.
European ports believe that any proposals leading to better enforcement of the obligation for ships to deliver waste at shore are welcome. The compliance of specific elements of the Directive with the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) gains ESPO’s support.
ESPO also said that addressing the waste from ships will lead to a better policy of tackling the sea-based sources of marine litter. Moreover, European ports welcome that new types of waste, such as scrubber waste, have been addressed.
“We welcome that the proposal seeks to increase efficiency, reduce administrative burden and aims to fully respect the ‘polluter pays’ principle. We now need to assess in detail the concrete provisions that are on the table and see if the options put forward by the Commission are the best way to guarantee an efficient but responsible regime for managing waste from ships,” says ESPO’s Secretary General Isabelle Ryckbost.
Furthermore, ESPO mentioned that better enforcement is not the only way to reduce the waste discharged at sea. The right incentives are as important. Namely, the fee system introduced, according to which ships are paying a fixed minimum fee when calling at a port, whether they are delivering waste or not, has certainly contributed to the delivery of increased quantities of waste on shore.
However, ESPO said that introducing a fee system where ships can deliver unlimited amounts of garbage, can be a severe and unacceptable divergence from the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
“The incentives as foreseen in the current Directive have without doubt been effective in reducing the waste gap. Continuing on this path seems a reasonable choice. Setting a price for an average quantity could be workable. But allowing ships to deliver even unreasonable quantities of garbage or dangerous waste for a fixed price would neither be responsible nor efficient. Equally we believe it is up to the port to decide if and when a rebate on the fee can be given to a ship,” added Isabelle Ryckbost.
Last week, Seas At Risk welcomed the new proposal as well, saying: “To prevent marine litter from ships, the EU Commission proposed the most efficient measure: all ships will have to pay for the total cost of waste delivery in ports, regardless of whether they deliver any waste. Let’s hope this will be quickly turned into law!”
