MARPOL permits unprocessed food waste to be discharged into the sea from vessels proceeding at a distance not less than 12 nautical miles from the nearest land. Sounds straightforward? Unfortunately, it is not – all coastal states do not define their ‘nearest land boundary’ in the same way.
A Gard Member’s vessel was recently detained in an Australian port for illegally discharging food waste into Australian waters. The alleged incident took place when the vessel was proceeding at 13 nautical miles (nm) from shore, or more precisely, from an island off the north-east coast of mainland Australia. A few months earlier, another Gard Member’s vessel was penalised in China for the same reasons, that is, for illegally discharging food waste into Chinese waters. According to this vessel’s log book, it had been approaching Ningbo Port at the time of the alleged incident and the crew had taken all necessary precautions to ensure that the vessel was at least 12 nm from the Chinese shore before discharging any food waste. So why were the two vessels penalised?
See attached file: MARPOL compliance and distances ‘from the nearest land’.pdf
遵守《防污公约》要求以及“距最近陆地”的距离
《防污公约》允许在距最近陆地不少于12海里处航行的船舶将未经处理的食品废弃物排放入海。听起来很简单？可惜这并不简单——沿海各国对“最近陆地边界”的定义各不相同。
最近，Gard会员的一艘船被扣留在澳大利亚某港口，扣船理由是非法将食品废弃物排入澳大利亚水域。当指称的事件发生时，该船正行驶在距离海岸（更确切地说，是距离澳大利亚大陆东北沿海附近的一个岛屿）13海里处。几个月前，另一Gard会员的船舶出于同样的理由（即非法将食品废弃物排入中国水域），在中国受到处罚。该船的航海日志显示，它在指称的事件发生前一直在宁波港附近，而且船员已采取一切必要的预防措施，来确保该船在排放任何食品废弃物之前，至少距中国海岸12海里。那么，为什么这两艘船遭到了处罚呢？
详细信息请参阅附件。
