Toxic & Hazardous Waste

Pollution Treatment
By: Prince Jupert Oliveros
Fast facts about marine pollution

 It is a proven fact that the marine industry amasses millions of tons

of garbage and waste products from day to day operations each year
causing massive marine pollution.
 Shipping industry, which is wholly accountable for the marine and
cargo transportation, is one of the potent sources for pollution at
sea. With over 70% water covering our planet, marine industry is
booming each passing day. With such rapid industrial growth the
marine ecological system is bound to get perturbed by unwanted
issues such as those of the marine wastes and effects of marine
pollution. Marine waste and the associated garbage have been
proclaimed as being majorly responsible in polluting the world’s
oceans.
Hazardous/Toxic waste

 Threatens human health or the environment because it is

poisonous, dangerously chemically reactive, corrosive, or
flammable.
Examples include:
 Toxic/Hazardous Wastes in ships such as plastic,
metals, glass, batteries, medical wastes, oily rags,
sludge, waste oils, electronic gadgets, appliances, etc.
Classification of Hazardous Waste:
Ignitable waste - can easily catch fire or spontaneously
combust.

Corrosive waste - wears away metals (acid or basic in

composition)

Reactive waste - is chemically unstable under

“normal” conditions.

Toxic waste - can be harmful or fatal when ingested.

Effects of toxic waste from ships:
 Waste can contain hazardous microbial, chemical or physical agents. For
example, sharp objects are in themselves dangerous and may harbour
infectious agents. Used syringes are a good example and can transmit
disease-causing agents, such as hepatitis C virus and human
immunodeficiency virus.
 Improperly managed ship waste are increasing with the greater number of
ships in service and the increase in habitation in port areas.Waste streams
on ships include sewage, greywater and garbage, as well as effluent from
oil/water separators, cooling water, boiler and steam generator blow-down,
industrial wastewater and bins like medical wastes bin and hazardous waste
bin; that if ever mismanaged these streams might cause leakage leading to
pollution.
What to do with toxic/harmful
substances on board:
 Restrictions on depositing hazardous wastes into water
bodies mean that ships need to capture and retain those
wastes on board for periods of time.
 The process of packaging and storing hazardous wastes is in
itself hazardous to the crew, and the storage of hazardous
wastes leads to the risk of harm arising should spills or leaks
occur.
 Waste needs to be appropriately disposed of in accordance
with the rules and regulations applicable at the point of
disposal.
Treatment
 InToxic Waste Treatment there are two
major options for getting rid of those
wastes:
 Incinerators
 Disposal Sites

 These two options are like a double-edged

sword because none of them has gave a
superiority on toxic waste treatment.
Incinerators:
 Incinerators are the facilities for burning and destructing
toxic wastes.
 Today many of these facilities are required for each and
every ship.
 Incinerators are not fully form a solution for toxic
wastes.
 For some special and fatal wastes incinerators can be
useless.
 Furthermore many countries do not want to possess and
annihilate those types of wastes. But chemical
enterprises can produce dangerous chemicals and under
illegal ways they try to get rid of those wastes.
Disposal sites

 They are also called as contamination areas.

 Toxic wastes are preserved in these areas for natural recycle.
 But not all of the toxic wastes belong to nature or can be
easily annihilated by itself.
 In contamination areas there must be security measures for
trespassing of peoples and other living creatures.
 On the other hand soil itself may drain liquid wastes deeper
parts of the earth.
 This can cause poisoning of groundwater.
Example of ship that generates a lot of
toxic material: CRUISE SHIP
 It is calculated that a cruise ship with a capacity of some 2,000-3,000 passengers
can generate some 1,000 tonnes of waste per day (1) which can be broken down as
follows:
 550,000-800,000 litres of greywater
 100,000-115,000 litres of blackwater
 13,500-26,000 litres of oily bilge water
 7,000-10,500 kilos of garbage and solid waste
 60-130 kilos of toxic waste
 This means that the generation of waste per passenger per day on one single ship
comes to at least 300 litres of greywater, 40 of blackwater, 10 of bilge water, 3.5
kilos of garbage and 30 grams of toxic waste.
Contamination by these ships:
 Cruise ship spillage can contain toxic substances such as hydrocarbons, organic residue and
pathogen agents have potential impact on sensitive areas of which is considerable.
 A study carried out and it found that 68 of the 70 samples taken from the effluent of cruise
ships using standard treatment systems exceeded the levels of concentrations of pathogens
in this spillage, High levels of coliforms were also detected in greywater, as well as heavy
metals and dissolved plastics.
 The generation of garbage is another pressing problem, as cruise ships produce 24% of the
total solid waste generated by world maritime traffic . Unfortunately, many ports lack the
proper installations to receive and process this and other waste generated by vessels.
 A report by the US government revealed that of the 87 indictments for illegal dumping by
cruise ships in its waters between 1993 and 1998, 93% included the dumping of
hydrocarbons.
 The report also revealed that 69 cruise ships from 42 different companies were chronically
involved in illegal dumping, submitting false information or not keeping the required
records of dumping and processing. And these illegal dumping practices have continued.