Waste Management Information and Plan

Under the Merchant Shipping (Port Waste Reception Facilities) Regulations 1997, ports, harbours, terminals, installations, marinas, piers and jetties were required to report to Government on how they planned their port waste reception facilities.The Regulations set out a structured planning process for waste management issues, including a formal consultation process with affected individuals and organisations and the estimation of the amounts of different wastes landed at ports.Associated British Ports (ABP) complied with the requirements and produced its first generation of Port Waste Management Plans (PWMPs) in 1998 for all its UK ports.The PWMPs referred to the provision of facilities for ships’ waste under the MARPOL Regulations and the operations associated with the provision of those facilities.Arrangements for waste arising at the ports from non-shipping activities were not detailed in the Plans.

During 2003, the Government brought into force a new set of Merchant Shipping (Port Waste Reception Facilities) Regulations, which superseded the 1997 Regulations and introduced new requirements to Port Waste Management Plans.In summary, these are:

  • Ships must provide notification before entry into port of the waste they will discharge, including information on types and quantities

  • Ships must deliver their waste to port reception facilities before leaving port, unless they have sufficient dedicated storage capacity for the waste and for it to be accumulated until the next port of call

  • Ships must pay a mandatory charge to significantly contribute to the cost of port reception facilities for ship-generated waste, whether they use them or not.

The Regulations also require waste arising from cargoes and associated activities to be addressed in Port Waste Management Plans, in addition to ship-generated garbage.Within ABP, these waste streams are generally dealt with under separate arrangements from those for ship-generated MARPOL waste.This Plan outlines the arrangements made for these streams but concentrates on the ship-generated MARPOL wastes.A number of vessel types fall outside the scope of the new Regulations and, as such, do not have to notify or offload waste or pay a mandatory charge.Separate arrangements will be made to deal with the waste these vessels generate.The categories and the arrangements made are outlined in Appendix B.

ABP’s Port Waste Management Plans needed to be reviewed and updated on a two-yearly basis under the 1997 PWRF Regulations.With the changes introduced by the 2003 Regulations, we have taken the opportunity to review and revise all of our Plans, to bring them into line with the new requirements.This Plan covers the ABP facilities at the South Wales Ports, which make up five of the 21 ports and terminals owned and operated by the company in the UK.

This Plan has been prepared taking into account the advice contained in the Maritime & Coastguard Agency’s ‘Port Waste Management Planning – A Guide to Good Practice’.It will be submitted for approval, in the first instance, to the local office of the MCA.Once approved, copies will be held at the MCA offices in Southampton, ABP’s Head Office in London as well as with the Marine Department at ABP Cardiff.It is intended to be reviewed in three years’ time, as stipulated by the PWRF Regulations 2003, although the Plan may be required to be amended at a shorter interval if significant changes have taken place.

Click here to view a  copy of the revised Port Waste Management Plan.