This last point is a constructive way to try to harmonize different countries’ practices for the discharge of scrubber water, in their ports and coastal areas. After the strong encouragement by the EU Commission back in 2012-2015, for ship owners concerned with the 2015 SECA rules, to install scrubbers as a compliance method, there has been a push back by some member states, considering the current discharge rules to be too lenient / uncertain.
 
The EU COM and the EU Member States have now finally taken the right step and put the question to the IMO if it can develop harmonized rules for such discharges. Interferry’s position is that any regulations need to be fact-based and that the general grandfathering principles in IMO instruments shall prevail, meaning that compliant scrubbers installed in good faith shall continue to be allowed to be operated also in a revised regulatory regime.
 
A cross-industry assessment on the accumulation of detrimental substances from ship scrubbers was presented to PPR 7. The study shows that even at relatively high loads of scrubber usage for berthed ships, the long-term effects are very small. This is one of several studies on the topic and PPR 7 invites for additional submissions providing more facts, to next year’s PPR 8.