European shipowners have issued a position paper on the upcoming revision of the Port Reception Facilities (PRF) Directive adopted in 2000 as a reaction to the recently published ‘inception Impact Assessment’ by the European Commission. In the paper, the shipping industry calls among others for adequate and sufficient port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and harmful cargo residues, a more transparent and fair fee system as well as an efficient monitoring and enforcement mechanism, ECSA said in its press release.
The PRF Directive transposes requirements of the MARPOL Convention into EU law. Its stated objective is to reduce the discharge of ship-generated waste and cargo residues at sea by requiring Member States to ensure that reception facilities are available in ports so as to collect these types of waste. Unfortunately, this obligation is not fulfilled, as there is a lack of adequate and sufficient facilities in EU ports, prompting the Commission to revise the Directive.
Moreover, the fees charged by some ports are neither transparent nor, in some cases, fair. A reasonable and functional fee system is required, fulfilling some minimum requirements and giving a fair incentive to the shipowners to deliver waste ashore.
European shipowners also call for a more pragmatic approach on the issue of waste disposal from ships. Ships engaged in short sea shipping i.e. travelling short distances and calling frequently at EU ports as well as ships with enough storage capacit do not need to dispose of their waste at every single port call. Therefore the revised PRF Directive should clarify the exceptions & exemptions regime by offering more flexibility to the shipowners without endangering the goals of the PRF Directive.
The discussion for a better waste management in Europe is gaining momentum especially after the release of the Circular Economy Package by the European Commission early December which also identifies the PRF Directive as the main tool to reduce the ship generated sources of marine litter (in line with the ECSA position paper on ‘Marine Litter’ adopted in August 2015).