Putting ship-borne waste in its place
Putting ship-borne waste in its place
A new treaty on waste management for inland navigation on the Danube aims to create a state-of-the-art and user-friendly solution to protect the river from pollution discharges.
The International Ship Waste Convention lays down realistic and viable rules for regulated collection and deposit of waste within a dense network of waste reception facilities along the entire Danube. © DTSG
The Danube River may know no boundaries – flowing easily from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. But for vessels navigating on the Danube, sometimes for several weeks, disposing of waste responsibly hasn’t been such smooth sailing. With a patchwork of varying international regulations, agreements and recommendations, disposing of waste can be expensive, time-consuming and in some countries plainly impossible. The new International Danube Ship Waste Convention (IDSWC) could harmonise ship waste management systems to protect the Danube from pollution and support inland navigation.
The draft of the Convention is the result of a two-year project funded within the South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme (SEE) of the European Union. The Convention for Waste Management for Inland Navigation on the Danube (CO-WANDA) looked at existing ship waste management systems to define uniform, harmonised transboundary rules and basic administrative procedures for ship waste handling. The CO-WANDA international project team included experts from Water and Transport Research Institutions, Waterway Administrators, River Information Services and representatives of port authorities, and brought together partners from Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine, led by Austrian waterway company via donau.
“Within the CO-WANDA project all participating countries, including the Republic of Moldova, have responded to the main project challenge – that is to develop an integrated and harmonised approach at the international level to address the full spectrum of issues related to ship waste management along the Danube,” says Valentina .api., Minister of Environment of the Republic of Moldova. “Drafting the International Ship Waste Convention has been one of the critical steps to which the project has responded along with the other complex and interlinked range of issues addressed throughout its course of implementation.”
A ship waste management system for the Danube. The Convention and its guidelines offer barrier-free solutions to disposing of waste, reducing the risk of environmental pollution. The Convention lays down realistic and viable rules for regulated collection and deposit of waste within a dense network of waste reception facilities along the entire Danube. In addition, it introduces a financing system using vignettes for vessels to pay to use the waste services in all countries, based on pilot tests in Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. For the future, however, the guidelines recommend implementing the vignettes in stages.
Some 188 ships registered for the Pilot Programme on the Electronic Vignette System, which allowed vessels to dispose of their oily and greasy ship-borne waste at predefined waste collection points, free of charge. During the one year pilot programme from July 2013 to June 2014, ships disposed of 549 m3 of bilge water, 35 m3 of waste oil and 2.6 tonnes of solid oily and greasy waste.
The International Ship Waste Convention introduceas a financing system using vignettes for vessels to pay to use the waste services in all countries, based on pilot tests in Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. © DTSGF
Most importantly, however, the COWANDA project closely involved navigation users. “For us skippers, having userfriendly, quick and economically sound waste-disposal services are important,” says Rudolf Hye, Managing Director, DTSG Donau-Tankschiffahrts-Gesellschaft m.b.H. “We think that in the future such services should be available along the entire Danube. While we don’t want to see exploding costs, we believe that for inland navigation as an internationally operating transport mode, environmental standards should be unified in all participating countries and developed in a practical way.”
Ensuring the future through international support. Excellent cooperation has characterised the project from the start, with experts from river information services, waterway administrators, water research institutions and port authorities making up the CO-WANDA international project team. “The involvement of the international organisations as observers was one of the key factors for the success of CO-WANDA,” says Hans Berger, COWANDA Project Coordinator.
As an observer, the ICPDR was invited to join the Advisory Expert Group of the project in order to provide feedback on strategic issues. “The ICPDR has a long tradition of international cooperation in the field of environmental protection, which was one crucial aspect for us,” says Berger. “As for the future of the IDSWC, international commissions in the Danube River Basin will become increasingly important when it comes to official negotiations and further development of the IDSWC.”
Now, it is up to the Danube countries to advance the work conducted within the project and start official negotiations. “While much can and has been achieved, we consider it necessary to further promote the IDSWC among our countries in the upcoming future and the EU Strategy for the Danube region offers us a good stand for doing so,” says .api. “Our joint actions will be founded upon up-to-date scientific knowledge, reliable assessments and good practice management tools and affordable finance models that are accessible for the variety of the national and regional stakeholders involved.”
