ENOUGH ALREADY No more dumping of wastewater into the Baltic Sea

Posted on 04/29/2016 | About Baltic Sea, Anywhere

The International Maritime Organization has announced that ferries and ships that cruise the Gulf of Finland in the summer will soon be banned from dumping untreated wastewater into the Baltic Sea. Getting to this point was a ten year effort, now the challenge will be to have full participation from all countries and companies affected.

The Baltic Sea is one of the world’s most polluted bodies of water. The ban will come into effect in 2019 for new ships and 2021 for older ones, but governments and industry groups are being asked to implement changes as soon as possible.

For years protection agencies have been trying to impose bans on dumping toilet water, but they have faced pushback from countries that have insufficient infrastructures to deal with waste in the ports. WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) also blames resistance from CLIA. 

HELCOM is the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission; that works to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea. 

Hermanni Backer, the professional secretary of HELCOM's maritime, response and fish departments, said that once the measure goes into effect, the Baltic will be the world's first sea region which outright bans passenger vessels' commonplace sewage-dumping practices.

"This is actually very important," he said. "We have gotten a concrete decision and that's always positive. Now the most important thing is to get all countries (in the region) onboard. There is a slight risk that Russia would not participate."