“Waste Management” is one of the most actual topics in port environmental management today. Not only is regulation in this area very dynamic, there also seem to be substantial business opportunities from which a port authority and its clients can benefit.

Too often, port area generated waste is discarded while it could be reused, recycled, separated or combined with other waste streams for improved cost efficiency or even for generating new commercial activities.

As an environmental issue, port area generated waste can lead to significant odour pollution, and even to soil- or water pollution if processed carelessly. Not separating waste is even more harmful for the environment; food waste contaminated with a small amount of oil can only be processed as oil (and not reused, eg. as cattle feed).

As a management issue, port authorities can demonstrate “good citizenship” by a well-structured approach. “Awareness creation” towards port users by informing on waste management solutions could be a part of this. Waste is a very visible environmental issue and therefore important for the public image.

The topic of waste management has become actual through the relevant EC directive. However, this WG will not concentrate on the shipping side of the environmental issue: this is regarded as sufficiently covered by IMO.

The Waste Management Working Group, active during 2004 and 2005, concentrated on the remaining challenges on the dry side of the port. This has the following aspects:

• production of cargo related waste (at transhipment)
• production of other waste by port industry
• waste collection and separation 
• waste processing and recycling

State-of-the-Art and existing practices

Please find below examples of existing practices and ongoing activities related to this issue.

• The Flemish ECOWARE project generated an overview of waste streams that could lead to insight on recycling / waste processing possibilities
• Port of Goteborg and the World Maritime University created publications to inform port users on waste separation / waste recycling.
• A certain fertilizer terminal used to produce a lot of waste. The waste being fertilizer falling on the quay while it was being transferred (spillage). This waste was collected against high costs, sometimes fertilizer was even accidentally spilt in the water. A solution was found after the terminal put a large cloth at the floor of the terminal. After spillage, the cloth was folded and the spilt fertilizer was collected - and sold.
• Several waste streams now constitute significant independent businesses. Scrap is of course the most well-known example. Other examples include collection of organic waste for use in cattle feed or biomass fuels, oil waste and slags for road construction, etc.
• In waste reception facilities, waste streams are often accidentally mixed, leading to high processing costs. Pictograms on containers defining the waste type are not consistent throughout Europe, leading to confusion and mistakes.

Opportunities exist for several other waste streams, and not all ports and port users might be aware of this. The barrier for developing these kind of activities is often economy of scale, when collection of a certain waste fraction only makes sense when substantial volumes can be collected. Therefore, collaboration between ports and port users can open windows of opportunity.

Opportunities / gap analysis

For a port authority, working on Waste management should have the following objectives:

• Exchanging best practices on waste management and creating transparency, should lead to elimination of the environment as competitive element. This way, we can work to a harmonized approach
• Exchanging best (and worst) practices can lead to significant cost reductions, both for all port authorities as well as for their clients. Also, environmental impact can be reduced
• By disseminating know-how to port industry, dockers, stevedores etc., the port demonstrates "good citizenship", and creates awareness in the port area, which can lead to a better public image and environmental management

We have analysed that there is a need for:

• Improvement (both economically and ecologically) of waste management by port authorities, because there is currently no overview of Best Practice.
• Creating transparency in costs and fees of waste processing, in order to enable development of a harmonised approach
• A harmonisation of waste separation / collection procedures

Objectives of the Working group

Main goals of the Waste Management WG were:

1. Inventory of cargo-related and port area waste streams

• overview types/quantities/qualities in ports; 
• identify collection and recycling opportunities ('make money with recycling instead of pay money for treatment'); 
• describe best practices; come to information exchange and pilot projects; demonstrate cost savings and good work; 
• come to a 'decision making model' to calculate potential financial benefit of certain solutions (separation or not, use new technologies or not, etc.); 
• identify practical ICT tools for waste collection, management and recycling.

Besides ports, involvement of port industry and stevedores will be necessary, to create an overview of waste in the port area.

2. identify factors that influence costs and fees of waste management in a port situation

3. input from the port sector on the development of the SafeSeaNet system

• structure information new to be prepared for coming questions; what is relevant information, how can we organize our information system in an adequate way; 
• give practical suggestions for lay-out of EU database system, which will be developed by the European Commission 
• give practical suggestion for particular records for the database, in order to facilitate ports with information requests in the future 
• investigate tools for Port State Control

4. standardisation of waste collection systems in ports / harmonisation of procedures of reception of ships' waste 

• study pictograms and color use in ports in EU (e.g. everywhere in Europe the Red Box is for oily waste); 
• propose standards for pictograms and colors; come to one sheet for the EU; 
• develop instruction set for crew/dockers to handle seperation of waste

If you have an example of a good practice solution in this area that you would like to share, please contact the EcoPorts Foundation Secretariat (foundation@ecoports.com).

>click here to learn more about Waste Management related solutions