| Summary: | Background. Considering the experience of the Port of Port Elizabeth where waste
volumes discharged from ships dropped drastically at the time when disposal tariffs
had been increased due to a regional crisis, the question arises whether the waste that
was supposed to be discharged in Port Elizabeth was instead dumped at sea.
Objective. The integrated waste management framework was used as a basis to
evaluate the level of understanding of the requirements of the International Marine
Pollution (Annex V) regulation and South African waste management legislation within
key stakeholders (Government, port and ship personnel) that have a crucial role to play
over ship to port waste stream. Considering that the individual's level of understanding
is in tacit form, which could be difficult to measure, the investigation focussed on
responses received and the application of that understanding as reflected by various
intervention strategies, such as processes, procedures and practices put in place as
means of complying with legislation. Both ship and port side practices were
investigated to assess the effectiveness of the above-mentioned intervention strategies
across all waste management functional areas as outlined in Figure 1. This included an
assessment of the application of a waste management hierarchy in Figure 2,
availability of an audit trail (record of waste management strategies implemented en
route), clear allocation of responsibility, and capacity building so as to confirm or rule
out the possibility of illegal dumping at sea, in light of the Port of Port Elizabeth's
experience and also to form a good basis to make recommendations towards future
improvements.
Sampling. A sample comprising 66.6% of the ships that called during daytime in the
Port of Port Elizabeth, during the month of August 2003 were chosen randomly for
interviews. Key role-players from the government and port were also interviewed as
means of verifying facts around waste management practices from ship to port
including legal enforcement issues.
Results. It seemed as though the shipside clearly understands legal requirements and
there are indications that they attempt to adhere to those however, due to the lack of
enforcement, they have adopted casual stance as reflected by waste logbooks that are
incompletely filled and some outdated. There seems to be more chaos on the portside
since government authorities that are supposed to enforce legislation including the
directive they issued on galley waste management, have a fragmented as opposed to
holistic approach whereby each department understands and sticks to it's scope,
leaving gaps in between that if allowed to continue unaddressed could result in
toothless legislation.
Conclusion. Due to the lack of visible legal enforcement, it is not possible to mle out
the possibility of illegal dumping. The incompletely filled waste logbooks are the only
reliable means of verifying that all waste generated on board the ship was indeed
handled in a responsible manner and accounted for or not. === Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.
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