Newsletter
REGULATIONS ON MARINE DUMPING AND INCINERATION UNDER AMENDMENT
The United Nations' 1972 Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (the London Convention) was amended in 1996 by the London Protocol, which took effect in March 2006. The amended Convention prohibits the marine dumping of all waste materials except for a "reverse list" of seven categories of materials that may be considered for dumping at sea under license. It also prohibits the exportation of wastes and other materials to other countries for marine dumping or incineration. In response to the entry into force of the London Protocol, and in view of the international trend toward stricter regulation of materials permitted to be dumped at sea, Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration is preparing to amend the Marine Dumping and Marine Incineration Management Regulations, which will be renamed the Regulations Governing Permits for Marine Dumping. The main points of the proposed amendments are as follows:
Under rules modeled on the International Maritime Organization's guidelines on the content of appli-cation documents for marine dumping permits, applicants will be required to submit a marine dumping operation plan that includes an analysis of the materials to be dumped, the number of planned dumping operations, the planned dumping period, the rate of dumping, the equipment used to control the rate of dumping, a monitoring plan, and an emergency response plan.
Vessels and equipment used for marine dumping will be required to be fitted with automatic con-tinuous monitoring systems that record the navigational path of the vessel or equipment, to ensure that they operate within the permitted marine dumping zone.
New provisions require consideration to be given to the feasibility of recovery and recycling of the materials concerned, in order to comply with international policy on marine dumping, whereby the main emphasis should be on recycling, and businesses should not be encouraged to dump materials at sea.
To reduce the administrative burden associated with the vessel loading and sailing notifications that a public or private entity is required to submit before conducting marine dumping operations, such no-tifications should be transmitted to the local coastguard agency and the central and local environmental authorities via the Internet or by fax.
The provisions regarding incineration at sea are to be deleted.
The seven categories referred to above are dredged material; sewage sludge; fish processing waste; vessels, platforms or other manmade structures at sea; uncontaminated inert geological materials; uncontaminated natural organic materials; and bulky items comprising primarily iron, steel and con-crete, generated at locations with no land-disposal alternative, such as outlying islands and remote coastal areas.