Integrated Port Waste Management 

Living ports

Modern ports reflect the needs of the region and the city and adjust to the changing pattern of shipping.

Ports today play an important part of the economy of the city and the region. As with other industry however, the framework of the ports demands continuously development. Port operation is a key element in the strategic planning and the interaction between port and city is a vital factor in ensuring that the port remains a living entity.

With regards to competitiveness ports today face the same challenge as other industries. Efficiency in port operations is vital to serve the ships without causing undue delays, but also marketing tools like improved (green) images are used to profile the port as a modern entity.

Efficient waste collecting from ships calling a port has for many years not been a serious matter, mainly because ships have identified alternative solutions at sea. However, due to strengthen legislation on national as well as international level e.g. MARPOL 73/78, London Dumping Convention and EU Directives, focus on pollution at the sea and coastal areas from ships is now increasing.

All ports needs to comply with existing legislation, and it is now widely recognised, by many modern ports around the world, that besides the geographically right location and efficient port operations, also a green image contributes making the port competitive and attractive not only for the ships, but also as a part of an active city.

Modern ports today are considering to become ISO 14.000 certified. The increased focus on ships and ports from the environmental authorities regarding ship generated waste has increased the need for waste reception facilities, and many ships nowadays are looking for ports, which can provide cost and time efficient waste collection services.  

Environmental aspects    

The world's Ports are dynamic gateways through which coastal states link their economic and social development with other partners across the globe. However, ports are not only receivers and exporters of  cargo, but they are also singled out as being major  exporters of pollution in the sea. As a result of their contact with multi-national ships carrying diverse cargoes, ports have often been unfairly singled out as being major polluters of coastal and marine environments. Another reason is due to their being located in urban areas where industries located in the port area, rivers and stormwater are continuously pulsing pollutants into the sea.  

At Grontmij | Carl Bro we believe in Intelligent Solutions to address problems such as this one. In our opinion, by making a more holistic, or an Integrated Port Waste Management (IPWM) approach, which we can provide to our clients. IPWM  provides an  conceptual framework that is operational and which can assist them with providing new solutions that will help them of attracting ships and clients who understand the benefits of dealing with an environmentally conscious port and Government who understand the meaning of a sustainable marine environment as basis for Sustainable Tourism Development. For example, we recognize that Governments are relying heavily on generating future income from coastal tourism, in establishing Marine Protected Areas to protect marine biodiversity and coastal fishery management, as well as developing alternative livelihoods to help alleviate poverty in coastal areas around the developing world. We recognize tackling ports as the primary perpetrators of pollution, while ignoring these other issues, leads to a fragmented approach to dealing with serious environmental problem. This short-sighted approach also leads to reactive, rather than proactive management of the land and the sea. Finally, it ignores the integral connection between economic health, environmental health and human health. 

Our integrated approach is one which focuses not only on a port with clear legal boundaries, but also on the adjacent urban and marine environments.  This also allows for international conventions such as MARPOL 73/78, the London Dumping Convention, GPA and the Basil Convention to be integrated within a common framework that can be used to help combat port and ship-generated pollution that impact coastal and marine environments.