Tuesday, November 8, 2016 - 09:17 by ce-press
On 22 of April 2016 the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) reached the decision that passenger ship sewage discharges into the Baltic Sea will be banned from 2021. The regulations will come into force for newbuildings as from 1 June 2019 and for existing ships the deadline is 1 June 2021. In certain cases of direct passages between St Petersburg area and the North Sea, there is a two-year extension to the deadline, until 2023.
The Port of Tallinn has been proactive in preparing for the situation and in September won the Seatrade Cruise Awards Environmental Initiative Award for micro-tunnel construction in the Old City Harbour. This will enable ships calling at the harbour to discharge unlimited amounts of sewage.
Sirle Arro, head of marketing and communication at the port, commented: “We believe that the received recognition will help to bring attention to the environmental aspects of the Baltic Sea and we also hope that our project will serve as a positive example for other ports.”
As reported by CE earlier this year, construction works began on the micro-tunnel in May this year, with the main objective being to increase the reception capacity of sewage from 100mᵌ to 1,000 mᵌ per hour. This is made possible by the construction of ship-shore-fixed sewage reception facilities connected to the municipal sewer system.
The port has requested and received EU co-financing from the development of the Helsinki-Tallinn maritime link projects: Twin-Port I and Twin-Port II. The total amount of the investment is E2.45m, of which E690,000 is covered by the funding.
