That is one noble person and I am a little more hopeful for us humans because of people like him. I also think they should be a way to incentivize whistle-blowers instead of letting them shoulder all the risks associated with their acts
sad that nobody cares about this people, and when it comes to money, we are always able to find a found to support war effort, but when it comes to this issue, no money, no equipment and police personal available!!
Agree, we need €1M+ prizes for whistleblowers that can be provide conclusive evidence. Can be paid out of the €10 million fine we should put on these environmental crimes.
@@ThomasBomb45 The only thing companies do, is produce what consumers want to purchase. There is in reality a duality: quantity or quality. As we speak, people unfortunately prefer quantity over quality. In order to produce more, the economy has to spend less resources in other areas; and this is what leads to massive pollution. How could companies protect the environment, while at the same time people want some cheap stuff delivered right infront of their house as quickly as possible? People are purchasing SUVs always bigger, homes always bigger, people take the airplane always more often, eat always more industrially produced food, Amazon's sales are increasing, and the list can go on. We all need to make efforts for pollution to be reduced. You can start by consuming more intelligently and by encouraging smaller businesses in your area.
@@PG-3462 I partially agree. I do think it's unfair to wholeheartedly blame consumers for inefficient & polluting practices of a corporation - the buying public have no control over them processes. I agree these corporations are producing supply to a demand. Yet I for one do not want cheap cerape coming form eastern asia that lasts literally 5 minutes then falls apart....useless. ... Consumer products must have a minimum 20 year lifecycle or have parts that can be interchangeable & used elsewhere. I blame the onset of the i phone in 2008, & Amazon creating instant (purchasing) gratification. .. With the regard to the latter. The Amazon business model is not necessarily a bad thing if the goods dispatched are of good quality & recyclable. Yet alot of Amazon sellers are out to make a quick buck and sell cheap cerape - that is useless. The answer as stated above, is for a minimum quality & lifecycle of goods/products. One may argue people wouldn't be able to afford such goods. Then that would suggest consumer taxes are too high - which is a conversation for another day.....
@@stuartd9741 You must not forget that behind every business, there are normal humans just like you and me who are taking all decisions and developping all products. What we can say is that the way corporations act reflects how the majority of people think. Unfortunately, there still is a major share of the population who still denies climate change and all the pollution problems we have, and there is another massive share of the population which agrees there are problems, but don't want to make any single effort to change their lifestyle. The increase of the sales of big 4x4 SUVs, of Amazon's sales and of the number of flight tickets sold are a proof of this. If everyone actually wanted to take care of the environment, then problems like the one in this video would never happen, because corporations' decision makers would technically want to take care of the environment as well, but that's not where we are unfortunately 😂 If many modern cheap products fall appart quickly, it's because consumers aren't willing to sacrifice the quantity of what they consume. As a result, companies use cheaper materials and faster production methods which cause more defects. In the end, pollution can only be reduced if two things happen: 1) Consumers agree to change their lifestyle 2) Existing businesses and new businesses created by normal people just like you and me develop alternatives which will help the average person to live while having a smaller impact on the environment. Blaming the government or the economic system won't solve any problem, as the government is way too big to find actual solutions to all the problems we have. The government also can't do anything if people aren't willing to change.
@@PG-3462 There is another factor in that companies can directly and indirectly influence what consumers *are able* to purchase. They are not merely capable of acquiescing to consumer demands. If the only homes being built are bigger on smaller plots (because home area compared to plot area most greatly increases the profit margin on sales), the market for smaller homes disappears. If real estate agencies advertise those properties that yield the highest margin the most, consumers either A) don't realize the smaller homes exist, B) become convinced that they want the bigger homes or C) some of both. If the real estate companies lobby the government to cut regulations on new home laws (those setting percentage of subsidized homes, their max cost and minimum quality, plus borrower-friendly loans), consumer power, and with it the free market, dissolves. The auto industry has been following a very similar path with the tech for mass-produced, consumer-level EVs having been around for nearly 30 years, but with the companies having the power to choose what to give the consumers -- even when the consumers want something different. Planes? The biggest issue there is the absence of rail infrastructure. That travelling plane is cheaper, faster and more convenient than rail for US domestic trips when the opposite is true for comparable -- *and greater* -- distances elsewhere in the world is... embarrassing... What's the biggest reason for the lack of rail infrastructure in North America? The air travel industry's lobbying efforts. This is far beyond an issue of individual responsibility implied by "You can start by consuming more intelligently..." People haven't been allowed to consume more intelligently. We need to collectivize citizen power beyond that of being individual consumers.
My whole life I’ve always cringed at even the thought of throwing a gum wrapper out the car window. This practice is so disrespectful and makes me sick to even think about it.
There’s always something horrible that rest of us aren’t even aware of and there will be abuses like this. Really unfortunate, thanks for bringing this forward via your investigation. Hope more focus is made on eliminating dumping.
We can do it! With scientists observing the horrible thing happening, journalists reporting on the horrible thing, and governments holding the perpetrators to accountable. We've done it before with the ozone hole layer, and acid rain, and leaded gas. (i'm trying to be less cynical)
people need to stop buying this rubbish from China which all has to come via this method this is the message we need to be getting out stop buying plastic toys and unecessary items from China and the environment will fix itself on many different levels
Couldn't the process of legally dumping bilge water once in the harbor be reviewed? So for example, the Port Harbormasters will document when a vessel is dumping bilge water. This gets uploaded online, someone monitors the vessels and their legal dumping. If they end up never dumping at a Port, something is off and they must be doing it at sea.
=LAWS OF PHYSIC DO NOT OBEY ANYONE'S WILL,DO YOU KNOW THIS,NO?????IF YES,WHERE'S THE PROBLEM?? .......THERE'S NO WAY ABOUT THESE OPERATIONS CANNOT BE DONE JUST BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF SHIPPING ITSELF....AS IT MUST BE DONE OR EVERYTHING WILL BE BROKEN,BUT IT'S NOWHERE TO GO AS IT IS JUST AT THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE =BY THE WAY THESE DUMPINGS BEING SO HAZARDOUS DO NI=OT MEAN ABOUT SOMETHING'S WRONG,IT'S JUST NORMAL OPERATING CYCLE .............SO..........IT'S LIKE DECLARE THAT NO WAY ABOUT TO SHOOT DEATH ANYONE WHO WOULD MAKE A PISS FOR 24 HOURS.................SO........EVERYONE'S TO BE SHOT DEAD,RIGHT?????OR IF 1ST STAGE IS DONE,THEN SURVIVORS TO HOLD FOR 48 HOURS,RIGHT?????WITH THE SAME REPEATING WHEN NOBODY WILL LEFT,RIGHT????? ...............ARE YOU TO BAN ALL KINDS OF SHIPPING AT ALL,RIGHT???????.........AND DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU'LL DIE FROM HUNGER IN POVERTY AS THE RESULT OF IT???????????????AS THERE'D BE JUST A MEDIEVAL AND IT'S PRETTY MUCH DOUBTFUL THAT YOU'D SURVIVE AT THESE HARSH CONDITIONS AS RATE OF MORTALITY AT THESE TIMES WAS WAY TOO HIGH......................AND DONT FORGET ABOUT MEDICINES AS WELL..............THERE WONT BE ANY AS WELL =................SO,AS YOU SEE,THERE'S MUCH MORE COMPLICATED PROBLEM INDEED
@@TheCongra You're thinking of this in a western lens. Most of the world still just dumps oil, toxic waste, sewage, garbage, plastics, etc. into rivers and the oceans. Bilge water would be a tiny and unnoticeable part of that and ships need to be built specifically to have dry bilges.
When I was in the Navy, this happened all the time. I told everyone I knew during my enlistment and for years after. The navy is permitted to dump bilge waste at sea, provided they are 50 miles away from shoreline, or at least that's what the law was back then. However, the Navy often dumps bilge waste within 50 miles of the shoreline and often times even when pier side. It's all due to pure laziness and *visual* inspection standards... there isn't supposed to be a build up of bilge waste and when a Chief or Senior Chief sees it, they tell someone within their division to "handle" it. This gets passed down the ranks until you have some E3 or E4 on the engineering midwatch and then he simply turns on the bilge pump in the middle of the night and lets it run for an hour or two. Essentially, the oceans and ports are getting polluted by the USN because someone wants to look good in the eyes of their commanding officers for having clean bilges.
Same experience. Machinist's Mate for 5 years. That was the worst part of the job to be honest. The illegal orders where they don't literally tell you to do anything illegal, but you're expected to read between the lines and "take care of it". And do it discreetly because if you get caught, its on you, the higher ups will let you take the fall and wash their hands clean of you. Not just dumping bilge, also dumping trash, gundecking logs and maintenance, being asleep on watch, etc.
Idk my experience with the USN was different. No one pumped overboard ever while in port. Bilge tanks would overflow all the time and they closed the heads to avoid overfilling the sanitary tanks but no one pumped into a port. It got to the point where the toilets said “if it’s yellow let it mellow if it’s brown flush it down” that’s how much they hated pumping. That was the sub fleet tho idk what the surface fleet does.
@@ryangale8736 Depends on the individual ship really. I've been on ships where everything is by the book, and ships (usually older ships) where cutting corners was common and expected.
It is horrifying to see our planet to get worse, even after all these years of water pollution. We haven't seem to learn anything from it and still keep going like there is a Planet B. Thanks for building awareness on this topic. Without the ocean there is no us.
Reactor 4 at Fukushima. And reactor 3 was running MOX fuel, illegal in the US and Canada! The pacific ocean I'd 95% dead, due to radioactive pollution from the reactors and decades of spent fuel lost in the explosions and meltdowns. I am reminded of Revelations, the 4th horseman has poured his vial. Sayonara!
@@bryannonya9769 I am working with organizations on a daily basis (filmmaking & graphics design). I create content for foundations to promote ongoing campaings that help people in need, restore our planet, protect animals like orangutans and much more. Yes there is lots of false information going around the internet and therefore it is recommended to not just trust something on the internet right away, always check sources and get different opinions. DW meanwhile provides you with realistic and authentic information. It is one of the best broadcast producer beside many others in Germany. There is a huge difference between "news" that are just meant to go viral and news that actually speak the truth like this video does for example. Sometimes the truth is so painful that not all of the footage is for the public eye. I saw things when editing that made me cry. So you really want to make a change to all of this. If you see it from first hands, there is no better Source then. Have a great day!
Welcome to Western Civilization. But you don't see the part you play in the mess when you walk in a supermarket and pick up a product that was shipped from 10,000 miles away
In my 15 years at sea I never worked on a single ship where we performed illegal discharge of bilges. It seems a more common practice with questionable companies. I'm a Chief Engineer now and anyone illegally pumping bilges overboard can expected to be fired on the spot. If a company would pressure me into these practices I'd resign.
Glad you're one of the good ones, Greg. Seems like this is a massive systemic problem that affects the whole industry. Any ideas how they could stop it from happening on a large scale?
But you admit your ship burned bunker fuel, right? The dirtiest, filthiest fuel there is! And they STILL burn this garbage, unabated by the billions of gallons every year. So even if you were running a "tight ship," you were still contributing to endless pollution and petroleum consumption. And then there's the economic destruction of the US economy that's involved in globalization. Americans have decided that trading economic prosperity for its citizens is worth cheap consumer goods. The homeless shitting on your street are the result of globalization and then social Darwinism and the "free market" decimating people. We COULD have addressed the problem, but the right wing thinks bootstraps are the solution. The shipping industry only enabled this disaster, economically and environmentally.
I work in manufacturing in California and I can assure you that companies only care about the environment when they’re forced to. Our EHS guy regularly tells people “you can’t do this again because an auditor might see you and we would get shut down!” It’s not about doing the right thing; it’s about continuing to make money. So activities like this are incredibly important! Thanks for keeping them honest and keeping our oceans clean!
The same everywhere. It's not: "Hey, don't do this. It's bad for the environment and for all of us." It's: "Hey, don't do this! We could get caught!" As long as people don't understand and experience the consequences of their behavior, they won't change it.
What's the chance of being caught? Company/shipowners will always take the risk of being caught because it still pays after fines. We need legislation to deregister repeating offenders. Globalization of trading was never a good idea in the first place.
@@vanessali1365 Problem is that the economy of food and consumer goods relies on overseas imports nowadays. Even in the Middle Ages, wheat was transported on ships. That's how companies get away. Only hydrogen fuel ships could be a solution.
@@موسى_7 I do understand certain goods/foods have to be imported simply because availability .... but globalization of trading treat everything the same .... I do agree with you that we do urgently have to look at our fuel source as how to power our houses, cars, ships...
@@vanessali1365 yup I definitely agree. Like the video says, we need to make the satellite imagery enough to convict as well. Otherwise the fines simply become “the cost of doing business.”
The worst part about this situation is that there is no "whistle-blower" protection, you come forth and out some company, not only you get fired you also get blacklisted in the job-market.
Not true. There are cases where whistleblowers get something in return. See the case of Carnival Corp where they were found guilty for such practice and the whistleblower got rewarded with over 1 million dollars.
Exactly. Bounties must be paid and they should have the ability to sue if they are discriminated against in hiring. Either that or they should be able to give their statement with their identity known only to the court.
Here’s a simplistic idea… charge a fee for the service automatically upon leaving port so that the ship is incentivized to use what they’ve paid for when they arrive. If it’s also a time thing, then allow them to get a rebate once the service is performed at the destination port, or if it’s just laziness, charge them a fee for not performing the service because they would’ve dumped in the ocean. Also seems like a great business to have a company that does “mobile” cleaning so it doesn’t slow down their trip or layover at port.
The Bilge tanks do not have to be emptied every time a ship docks at a port. Especially more modern and well maintained vehicles produce way less of this spill waste as it's usually a result of poor maintenance and then leaks from the engines, pipes etc.. Charging the ships for emptying their bilge tanks and disposal of theoretical waste seems kind of weird if a ship might not have full bilge tank at all.
@@Esablaka That’s good to know! Maybe an adjustment can be made, so when you reach port and if everything looks in good shape you can be on your way and get a refund for services not rendered? Full disclosure I know nothing about bilge tanks aside from the information found in this video, so my suggestions may not address the full scope of the issue.
Put a sensor in the bilge tanks that detects the level at all times, and have the data in a black box only accessible to the authorities at ports. If the data shows the bilge tank went down significantly or at all during transit you know they dumped. Not perfect, but would help I think
Not sure that would work given that proper procedure is to dump the bilge water at sea but after filtration. You need a device that caches samples of the bilge outlet to check the cleanliness.
All pumps, electric eq and other machinery on the ships are run using computer interface with permanent log of any actions. Starting/stopping of pumps, oil-water separators etc. are all logged. I think regular (yearly?) audit should be enough to strongly discourage any monkey business.
What if ships were reqired to report their bilge levels at all ports they go to and submit their sailing plans, so at each port ispectors can compare expected vs actual levels of bilge that a ship has?
I'm not sure, whether it is that easy to calculate and I'm pretty sure, that people will find ways to sabotage these systems. But what if harbors would take a general fee for bilge water disposal, no matter wether the ship actually makes use of it or not. That would make proper waste disposal more attractive. I wonder wether Greenpeace or other institutions have ways to bug suspicious vessels, as satellite images are not sufficient to sue them and whistle blowing isn't really reliable enough as a measure.
Or maybe make the fee dependant on the fuel used or on distance traveled divided by time. Doesnt incetivize dumping but still somewhat proportional to how much bilge is generated
That's already the case, at least in Europe. Ships have to submit waste declarations before being allowed into a port. The port authority can even force them to offload some wastes in shore facilities if they consider there is a risk for the ship to dump them at sea.
@@hoale811 Get your point but realistically people just won't stop going there on large enough scale. Its best if someone who either way goes there keeps and eye on the crew committing possible crimes and actually record and report it. That could make more changes in total than that one person dropping to go there all together, while lots of other people still do
I very much doubt a cruise line would deliberately take such a risk with several thousands potential whistleblowers onboard... The few stupid ones which tried something like that were caught and had to manage a PR shitstorm which is the last thing they want. That said there are some liquid wastes offload that are perfectly legal at some distance from the shore (grey waters, ballasts, food wastes...), which can be mistaken for illegal offloads. Then there is as well the propellers effect in shallow waters which shake the sand and create a brownish trail behind the vessel, often mistaken as well for an offload. Newer cruise ships are build very expensive state of the art water treatment facilities onboard and would have no interest in not using them...
I sailed on cruiseships, we had strict rules and bilge pumps were locked and every possible way out of the ship was also locked. Multiple persons were needed to unlock. Intensify inspection helps hopefully
Something I find particularly worrying about this kind of report is this: the practice was outlawed 50 years ago and companies are still doing it. It will still be however many more years until we're actually able halt the practice with new technology, by which time there will be however many more ships, and surely more technology at their disposal to conceal it. What they showed here was a low estimate for Europe, in the most regulated (but far from the largest) waters on Earth. What about South East Asia? Or other, more remote waters? This practice was outlawed fifty years ago and we are still struggling with it. What about practices that we are still fighting to outlaw today? If we successfully manage to ban fracking altogether this year, how many years will it take to enforce it? A non-systemic "transition" is going to be insufficient to avoid catastrophe - at best it will just reduce its severity. But that is considering that companies actually follow the law. What hope do we have if it takes more than half a century to insure that they do?
Fraking, once it's outlawed, will be very easy to control - the material can only go in at well heads and the seismic signature is unmistakable. And it's easy to catch because the frakers must be on site and active. But nothing is said about the tens of thousands of abandoned well heads in the USA - no one is going after the companies that leave leaking, unsealed oil wells because the company went 'bankrupt' (i.e. sold their equipment to a shell company at pennies on the dollar, then put the violating company out of business and started up the shell company to continue the practice - rinse, repeat). That leaves better than two thirds of well heads sitting exposed until taxpayer money can be found to seal them. Sure, oil companies are charged an escrow whenever they open a well head that is supposed to go into the sealing once the well is played out but that money is less than 25% of the cost to seal a well and, often enough, simply disappears. And that's just in the USA. I can only imagine, in horror, what China does all over the globe, or Japan, or pretty much the entire continent of Africa...
It's quite sad yes. We the humans have to understand the importance and do something but also force companies to do something. It's just too easy for them to dump builge water. Tracking and finding them is hard. Imagine they'd fill it into canisters and just sink those. Then we'd know even less and couldn't even pick it up with radar anymore. A solution could be to simply force them to pay for an average amount a ship of that kind would produce from the last harbor to the next. That way they already paid for the disposal and not using it would be pointless.
The chances of getting caught are tiny and I suspect that the fines are so trivial they are not a deterrent. If an offence literally put the company out of business and gave the company directors a custodial sentence the practice would end.
@@stuartd9741 This practice doesn't have anything to do with climate, but it has a lot to do with pollution. And yes, they should be fined millions to save the planet. In the first place, they broke the rules that had been implemented. There should be significant consequences for doing this.
It seems to me they are caught just fine. There's probably a lot of economic and political interest in looking the other way and imposing laughably soft consequences. How do you explain all of these ships being perfectly tracked by satelite in their passing at the time and the location of the spill and not having it be admisible in court? "Nah, that spill is just miles of fish oil from all the fishing our crew did recreatively from the deck while transporting TVs to Senegal" ??? The ammount of heads that would have to roll, the ammount of trade routes that'd have to be changed, the extra salaries payed if the law was followed and the environment protected are not considered worth it by anyone in power. They can lobby, and brive and dodge till the cows come home or till the consequence become too obvious and the PR too dissastrous. This issue doesn't even have a wikipedia article, smh.
Thanks for sharing this. Awareness is the first step to stop these self damaging habits. Five times the equivalent of the Exxon spill…. And it is a recurrent thing. Unbelievable. We have to compute the penalties into the cost of shipping. This has a cost. Someone has to pay for it.
I used to work as a seafarer and it came to my suprise when I found out that they do this frequently like it's a normal thing. I worked on the bridge but sometimes I do deck duties and one time our chief mate ordered us to throw the garbages into the ocean because they're gonna have a problem with the amount of garbage that we're gonna unload on port so they decided to throw it into the ocean, just wow. Like the whistle-blower said "it is expected that everyone will participate in it". They threw a lot that I could not imagine how much more ships are doing the same thing. Not to mention they also burned plastics on board. One time we threw spoiled food at the ocean so I tried to separate the food from the plastic packaging, I did it successfully however one of my mates saw the plastics piled up, he picked it up and threw it in the ocean. The 1st captain tolerated it, the 2nd captain was strict about it so they did it behind his back. The Marine Pollution subject that we studied and trained for was all for formality, including the certificates on board.
Yeah I got asked to throw buckets of oily rags over board as a cadet, I just laughed in the blokes face and said "no way" I had a decent education and knew the consequences not just for the environment but the criminal prosecution I could face. About an hour later I find one of the Indian oilers dumping them straight over.
Don't know where you worked but 33 years experience, and I have never made any illegal discharge from any ship I have been on. You have bad officers and employers my friend.
Hello reading the comments, I noticed that some of you are from the marine environment. If this is your case you can surely help me& I am currently thinking about my future studies and it might be in the merchant navy. I have a few questions that I can't find answers to like. Is it possible to have a family life? How long do we usually leave? What are the career developments? (reconversions / possibilities ashore in particular) How long do we come back to dry land afterwards? Are there bonuses given that we are not at home? What do you think of the job? How is life on board, isn't it too monotonous? Etc Thanks very much
@@MegaJuniorJones it costs to get rid of it at port, you also get a fine if its on board. You can burn it if you are outside boarders or protected areas, but often you can be sailing through those areas for days, or perhaps someone was just forgetful or lazy.
I hope videos like this keep getting made. I am still hopeful that the next generation will be aware of the health of the planet. We can learn to do good when we know more about the bad.
I’m really hopeful that we just have a wave of selfish people in power right now. And as they move out of positions in power they’ll be replaced by more environmentally minded people. Simply because the younger generations have a larger percentage who care about this stuff. We’ll see though.
How to make the next generation aware is by not making a next generation. It's pretty unethical to make children, and from a environmental perspective, way less polluting.
Protecting the environment is actually sometimes very much different from saving the climate. Even though both goals are noble, they are not the same. In this case, the climate couldn't care less about oil in the oceans, it's "just" environmental protection.
So they talk bad about Greta Thumgerg, I mean, we dont have to do all she says, but we should take that in mind, think and change so... We have to think about our children. What we can do is to start from our own household. Reduce food waste, recycle, and even more important stop buying so much clothes which pollute enormous amount of water.
I've worked on a cruise ship before and we all had to learn about this so that it doesn't happen. One of course could argue that not every waiter or reception worker who's never seen the ship's engine before needs to know this but it is part of our health safety and security training. This also includes not dumping anything into the ocean that could harm it and reporting everything that goes overboard how small it might be (e.g. a ping pong ball). It's quite sad yes. We the humans have to understand the importance and do something but also force companies to do something. It's just too easy for them to dump builge water. Tracking and finding them is hard. Imagine they'd fill it into canisters and just sink those. Then we'd know even less and couldn't even pick it up with radar anymore. A solution could be to simply force them to pay for an average amount a ship of that kind would produce from the last harbor to the next. That way they already paid for the disposal and not using it would be pointless.
@@NathanTarantlawriter lot's of things have changed in the past decade. I can only tell for recent events. I think we are allowed to dump pulp which is basically any soft food mushed really thin. However they basically dive through it first and make sure that it really is just organic waste that gets pulped and currently they aren't even dumping it in the sea but in Port. Each cruise line has it's own policy on that. There are regulations that do get checked regularly through international and external audits. We have almost purely western european guests with a relatively high standard for the environment meaning that they at least try to do good... It's still a cruise ship after all though 😉
@@0xsergy Basically all plastic waste in the sea comes from the third world where garbage is basically thrown into rivers. Only way to solve that issue is to find ways to give it economic value. Burning it as fuel for power stations is a great way to do that but there are others.
@@NathanTarantlawriter no they don’t even though they dump the least toxic waste they can, they do try and be clean and well tbh they are the cleanest type of ships since they are always updated
Bilge pumps are used to pump out water in the event of a hill breach and the vessel takes on water. A bilge pump in the bottom level on a floor, does exactly that. It has to be inside a tank of fluid, to pump fluid out....
honestly, this is one of the nastiest things in the planet. Like they can fill the toxic waste into barrels and yeet it on some landfill or basically burn the substance off, but dumping it into the ocean. That's really bad.
It would only seep into groundwater in a land fill. Burning (assuming evaporation, etc) just puts the foul stuff in the atmosphere. Evaporate and proper disposal costs a lot of money. A LOT of money. Can't have oil companies spending money to protect the environment. Someone will accuse them of being groomers.
In my 15 years at sea I never worked on a single ship where we performed illegal discharge of bilges. It seems a more common practice with questionable companies. I'm a Chief Engineer now and anyone illegally pumping bilges overboard can expected to be fired on the spot. If a company would pressure me into these practices I'd resign.
In the video at 7:50 they say regulations require the dumping of the "bad liquid" at the next harbor. Use sensors to measure the dump concentration and volume. Compare that to the estimated amount of pollutants expected from the vessel. Fine anyone not participating in the dump or not meeting a threshold. Even better, do not allow them to unload their cargo. Change happens when the ideal practice is the easiest or most profitable one.
Im have been working as an engineer for 10 years and have never been on a boat where bilge water has been dumped directy overboard. I have used 3 diferent types of bilge water separators. Marinfloc and alfa laval centrifugal separator works great. But the cheepest alternativ is RWO and it is a struggle to get it to work under the 5ppm limit. So the sensor has to bee tampered with to manage to pump "clean" water overboard. The RWO usualy pumps out cater containing 20-50ppm oil, but the Marinefloc and alfa laval works like a charm delivering below 5ppm. Sadly the cheapest RWO is the one that has been on most of the boats where i have been. We all wish tho follow the 5ppm law but it is not possible.... There should be many more sensors on the owerboard pipes and the should be tamper proof.
Could the bilge water system be closed loop. So that the waste liquid could be dispensed each time the ship docked at port? All the time there is this open loop system it will allow abuse.... Or as you say. Perhaps mandation of the more efficient bilge pumps..
All kinds of bilge water separators should not be allowed , plugged, then all ports should have facilities to recive bilge, then there's no reason to fiddle and pump overboard. How about seewage , another problem , big tanks to keep until reach port ?? Also Cargo residues should be pumped ashore not this 15 ppm buisiness.
I've been working for more than 17 years onboard ocean going ships and never see anyone to use this equipments.they just use it in front of surveyers but not in normal condition.
for every industry there's always going to be that 1-10% that do things illegally/cheaply to save money.. and that's in 1st world countries. now imagine what happens on chinese boats with their bilgewater?
*As a seafarer that works in the Engine Department. When I'm on a vacation I didn't go to beaches but on rivers to swim because I know what we dump into the sea and the magic pipes to bypass the OWS (Oily Water Separator) and direct some Bilge water into the sea. We can't say it's all clean because some of my engineers know how to manipulate the system btw the acceptable discharge of oil into the SEA in 15PPM*
When I worked on tugboats I cleaned my bilge everyday with oil absorbent pads. In fact the coast guard did a surprise inspection they concluded they had never seen a cleaner bilge.
I live on Roatán where tourism is the main income for many when the Carnival cruise ships arrive, but recently they've been bilge dumping more than ever and it's causing serious damage to the marine life here, including the reef. It's getting very worrying now.
In my 15 years at sea I never worked on a single ship where we performed illegal discharge of bilges. It seems a more common practice with questionable companies. I'm a Chief Engineer now and anyone illegally pumping bilges overboard can expected to be fired on the spot. If a company would pressure me into these practices I'd resign.
I feel like this would be an easy problem: Monitor bilge quantities being legally disposed of. Each ship will produce a certain quantity per mile traveled. If that amount isn't being disposed of legally; it's being disposed of somewhere
This would pose a safety risk. Often the bilge pump can also be used in emergency to dump flood water, should the Hull be breached. I volunteer aboard a almost 90 year old tug boat. Everything goes overboard. That's how they were built way back. On modern ships though. I do agree, they do need to clean up their act.
There isn't a predictable amount of bilge water produced. Every ship, even of the same exact class with all the same equipment will behave differently. The ships will all have different leak points.
It should be fairly simple to figure out. If a ship sail, for so many miles, it must have accumulated so and so much bilge, from one harbor, to the next. If it hasn't anything to unload, I'd say there foul play.
I don´t think this problem can be solved by suing companies here and there. It will still be more profitable to keep this up and fight the occasional lawsuit that will be fend off by a team of lawyers. I would rather think that the only solution is to make it not profitable anymore. I can imagine that a tanker of a certain size builds up roughly the same amount of bilge water for every kilometer it travels. What if for every kilometer they travel the have to pay a fee and if they dump the bilge water in an harbor they get that money back?
@@petergibson2318 I was not talking about a fine but a fee. You can make that fine as high as you like it still will not work. A fine can only be enforced if someone is prooven to be guilty. A fee is payed by everybody who is shipping in international waters. Only those who dump their bilge water in the harbour get that money back. Those who obey the law pay nothing those who dont do. Without anybody having to proove if they did or not.
the amount just tells you how much parts of the ship leak, you can"t directly equate distance with bilge waste volume obviously no leak at all would be incriminating on ships of that size, but estimating how much there should be is not a straightforward process if you tried to standardize it, badly maintained ships would keep dumping, and well maintained ones would start deliberately dumping oil and sea water into their bilge to get believable results, and eventually give up on high maintainance standards
I've known about this awful practice since the 1980's as my family ran a bird sanctuary and every few months without fail we'd get a huge influx of bilge oil covered seabirds that we'd have to scrub for hours to clean them up and then weeks/months of rehabilitation to release them. Many would not survive as they'd have ingested the oil and would have a long protracted painful death. I'd say I'm surprised that it is still a depressingly normal occurrence but I'm not as companies will find ways to cut corners if they think they stand a good chance of getting away with it.
They do. Any discharge via the onboard Oily water separator is to be logged in the Oil Record Book which must have the ships position, start time, stop time, quantity discharged and quantity remaining onboard. Internal transfers are logged and discharges ashore are logged and a copy of the paperwork kept. Oily water seperators have tamperproof monitoring that record operation and oil content, max to discharge overboard is 15ppm. They are tested monthly and surveyed yearly. Keeping ontop of bilges is complex, the designs of the ships don't necesarily make it easy and treating bilge water is very difficult. Often seaferes, especially those who have very little rights/ job security are pressured into illegal dumping of untreated bilge water by the companies not willing to pay for shore side dishcarge.
It seems that paying for shore side discharge is "stopping" ships from using the onshore facility. What's about adding a mandatory fee for the shore side discharge?
It's been going on for 20 years and still they are waiting on the technology to get better... and still nothing gets done about it. that is very sad :(
I’ve noticed a general trend where people like to kick the can down the road by saying stuff like “once this new tech gets deployed we’ll be able to really take care of ____ problem.” In reality, most of our problems can be taken care of immediately with a mix of extra human labor (lord knows we have enough people who need jobs) and caring less about constant profit growth. That’s what makes all of this so frustrating to constantly see. None of these are terribly hard problems to address.
Where is the climate emergency then? Apparently we don't have time to kick the can down the road..? ... What about a closed loop bilge system emptied each time at port...?
Great idea, but not from a shipboard safety standpoint. More regulation and enforcement is required. Ships have been dumping waste overboard since the age of steam. Ash clinker, bilge, cylinder oil etc ejected overboard since the age of steam.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet that's what I dont understand. At what point do you still need money. You only live 100 years if your lucky and people make 500 million dollars in 20 years and still want more and more. When we are talking that much money you can buy land and build houses that generations of your family can live in and never have to work again yet people still want more and more. What's the point in owning a yacht you use twice a year or owning houses you use every couple years? The insanity of human greed is something I wish we could evolve beyond.
The ways we are killing this planet seem to be endless, I never have and don't think I ever will understand people who are so callous about the state of our planet.
I was a junior engineer on a ship -- we engineers can easily bypass all systems and do whatever the management wants .. It is trivial to fabricate fittings right onboard the ship .. and pump shit out.
As a marine ship agent, I always encourage crew to speak up and I always give the number of agriculture to report such incident every time I go on board and meet them.
I think it would be nice to add that MARPOL does allow filtered bilge water to be dumped when the water doesn't contain more than 15 ppm of oil. There's a ppm device that measures this and controls the flow of the bilge water. But of course, it's possible that there's being messed with this device (although that's becoming gradually more difficult to do so)
Great investigative journalism. If the radar satellite investigation picks up 1,500 dumping incidents year (equivalent to five Exxon Valdez oil spills!!) and only in EU waters, this means a helluva lot more is occurring worldwide. It's horrendous and so frustrating that these companies continue to treat our oceans, and Life, as dumping grounds.😫😭
Firstly: If there is always bilge water being produced, then it must always be cleaned out, mustn't it? Therefore it should be easy to control these professional cleanings in the next harbor. Make it mandatory! Secondly: If a company has been found guilty of dumping their bilge water illegally into the ocean, then it must either be punished with a multi million Euro fine or - at least with recurring misbehavior - put out of business for good.
The problem with this idea are loopholes in our legal system, A petroleum company I worked for the CEO was going through a divorce to prevent the wife from taking 50% of the equity out of the company he had changed the name of maritime company, and shafted her out of the money. Sure this may be a civil matter but the principle is still the same. Change the name of the company, and walla it's no longer the same company being ran thus it can't be shut down,
People are running around with electric cars , energy saver lightbulbs and a shopping bag for life , the worst perpetrators for pollution , theres over 250 thousand barrels of nuclear waste dumped into our seas, and nuclear plants pumping thousands of litres of contaminated water daily into the sea. A few oily bilges from ships is bad but not that bad , most modern ships from developed countries have strict policys.
I used to work on a barge and we would get accused of dumping our bilge water all the time…what we were actually doing was pumping sea water out of the hull cavities of our barge so it wouldn’t sink. So public service announcement: if a barge is pumping water and it’s not leaving an oily slick on the water…it’s not bilge water. The technology these guys are using to catch people dumping bilge water is so cool. A lot has changed in 15 years.
Isnt it possible that ships would have to document where they discard of their bilge? (Like get a stamp from the harbor). Because then, when they can't show they have the right documents we can fine them or even forbid them from leaving. Of course these documents could be forged, but it would be a discouragement if fines are large enough. The major problem i see is that it would require additional international agreements and law.
I think the international aspect is the biggest thing that holds the shipping industry back. Everyone just concentrates on governing what happens along their coastline and ignores stuff in international waters for the most part.
This could work. The key would be to have access to their water treatment plant data on board. Seeing how much M3 of water they are processing. Then you could calculate an approximate amount of waste extracted. If that approximate amount of waste is not pumped off at regular intervals at documented ports then the ship should be flagged for possible bilge dumping.
It is...in order to discharge bilge water you use an OWS (oily water separator) system. When the system is started it is logged in the ship's log, the OWS system, in the bridge navigation log (ship stamp and captain signature) and in the engine book (ship stamp, chief engineer signature). The system discharges water only if it has a contamination level bellow 15 ppm (parts per milion). This kind of behavior is not the norm, it mostly happens in small shipping companies whith poorly maintained vessels and poorly trained(to put it mildly) seafarers. It is by no means "the norm". There are strict regulations in place and in most countries violation is a criminal offence.
@@dsnmttr thanks for this. Puts in some perspective. Now I think about it this video doesnt really name percentages how often it happens. Do you work in shipping that you know this? Or could you maybe provide me woth some sources so i can look into ot further myself
@@MssIAMNOBODYSPECIAL i work on board merchant marine vessels since 2014. This is not "the norm", this video is a shallow investigation and resembles more of a "hit piece" click bait video. While this still happens in small shipping companies with poorly maintained vessels and even poorly trained crew...it is not "the norm". LE: oil spills can be seen with infrared camera's and there was once talk in the EU of buying drones that can easily monitor ship behavior whilst in the EU zone. The US Cost Guard already does this with planes and helicopters in a limited capacity.
i was in a certain country's navy and i tell you we retrofit our pumping systems to discharge oil and bilges overboard, usually at night to avoid oil trail detection
I worked as merchant mariner for years...all boats dump their bilge @18 mile marker, and this guy is wrong, it's not illegal and furthermore ANYTHING can be dumped at the 18mile marker...research Edison Chouest
Cruise ships do something similar. During the day their smokestacks show very little dark smoke. But in the night, the exhaust smoke billows out dark and thick. I noticed that on a cruise back in 2019. Need regulations, inspectors etc.
Most probably during the day they are closer to shore, regulated to use diesel, during the night they go further from shore so they can use heavy fuel (more smoke). Since 2020 even heavy fuel is either very low sulfur or if you use old heavy fuel, the ship is required to have scrubbers fitted to the exhaust
'The world's seventeen largest ships emit more sulphur than the global car fleet. ' 'A seagoing container vessel is just as polluting as up to 50 million cars. 6:09 Every year, those container ships plying the world's waterways spew about 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air, which is about three 3% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Sources: CE Delft; NPR
This is very common. I has seeing this when I was start do open sea fishing. Looks like they capable dumping toxic waste all the time even from containers. Well Done Naomi...
This happens every day on your doorstep... Even the small fishing boats dump stuff over the side, from Newlyn to New York, LA to Hong Kong, Cadgwith to Cardiff... Fishermen have a lot to answer for 😔
I have worked in maritime industry and I have heard stories that it used to happen, but Marpol regulations and company regulations are so strict now, no one even thinks to dump anything in ocean, forget about oil. I agree that there might be some companies which don't have strong regulations and such practices are still done on their ships. Wherever it's happening, needs to be stopped. Also I want to point out that this video is very biased and it's not very often we see dumping, dumping might be regular on some older, badly regulated ships. But most ships have a very high standards and work ethics which are totally against marine pollution. There are lots of errors and generalisation done by the makers which makes it sound like it's a regular thing for ships to dump oil in ocean, which is not at all the case. But wherever it happens, it should be stopped, I agree on that part.
I've always known companies must have been doing this. It is too easy for them not to do. Finding a solution is beyond me. Businesses rarely follow every law they are suppose to.
This is a very good documentation. I wish there are more evidence, rather than just from whistleblowers to have a sense of aggregate impact of this problem.
It seems like there should be a very easy way to manage this process. When ships dock one would reasonably expect them to have bilge tanks that need to be discharged. This process can then be monitored from the harbour. Any ship with no discharge would then be suspect. Over simplified but that seems a very strong way to manage this regulation.
The reason they dump stuff is because at a harbour they have to pay to get rid of it. The simplest way to help would be to make the disposal free but paid for by charging a docking fee to cover it. That reduces the incentive to dump, but unfairly makes relatively clean vessels pay more than they might have to if they paid for their own waste rather than charging a fixed cost based on the size of the vessel.
That could be encouraged but there would be limitations cause if you have a vessel that is doing a trans Pacific voyage you'd have to collect the Bilge Water for around 22-26 days (assuming around 14-16 Knots). So the question is... Do you have the capaeto store all the Bilge Water that has been generated along that voyage. Most vessels don't have very large Bilge Tanks. Largest I have seen was 57 cubic meters which had a Hugh Level Alarm set at about 46 cubic meters. Sources of Bilge Water are from leakages of the Sea Water Pump glands, drains of trays of Water Coolers, Fresh Water Generators, jacket cooling water drains of various machinery like Generators or the Main Engine are led to Bilge Tanks as these would need to be drained accordingly while carrying out maintenance for eg. Replacing an Exhaust Valve on the Main Engine or Cylinder Liner Renewal. You also have a substantial amount of condensate water that's generated from the drain of the Main Engine Air Cooler. Some of the newer vessels have the option to put it to a seperate dedicated tank while the old builds would collect it in the Bilge Wells or the Bilge Tank directly. The amount of condensate generated depends on many factors such as the Engine Rpm, Scavenge Pressure, Scavenge Air Temperature, Cooling Water Temperature, the Relative Humidity of the ambient air etc. As good practice we maintain the Scavenge Air temperature just above the Dew Point so as to avoid any condensation. This reduces condensate drained as well as any chances of carry over into the Scavenge Space (this reduces the chances of Sulphuric Acid corrosion of the Cylinder Liners)
Imagine a whole ship being sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Imagine how much toxic bilge is dumped into the ocean when a ship is sunk during war. All the fuel and everything else on that ship is going into the ocean forever. This should be very concerning to all.
Meanwhile all the attention is given to plastics and other things floating in the water. There's way too many things that are overlooked that aren't as media sexy as people going to beaches to collect plastic trash. It's a big reason why I tend to feel a bit disgusted at every fundraiser on any green problem, the vast majority of bad practices go unnoticed.
Misdirection. Corporates; buisness as usual. Yet the public are castigated for producing waste... Shift the focus "bad consumers" allowing the corporations to carry on polluting.... Capitalism & climate change are not mutually exclusive - it's either one or the other....
I saw one of these trails in the Puget Sound one time. I thought it was just something on a ship leaking which would have to be fixed and was probably illegal, I never thought it could be intentional.
Yeah… people are too kind-hearted to realize corporations will do harm and break the law as long as they can get away with it and it helps their bottom line. It makes me really mad for my fellow humans to be controlled and manipulated by corporations like we are in 2023.
I remember my bosun's crew mate once dumped an empty barrel to Biscay Bay in rough weather without putting a hole to the barrels so it will directly sink to the bottom before he throws it overboard the bad thing is there's a ship name and IMO number imprinted on those barrels and months had pass those barrels drifted at French coast, and the vessel is at the port of Las Palmas Spain the French coast guard called the Las Palmas port authority to conduct investigation so it find guilty and the vessel is detained for many violations..
As a tour boat captain and Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteer, I've often seen large freighters at anchor flushing their bilge. It's frustrating and upsetting.
so as a coast guard volunteer you never reported crimes you saw in action? no wonder this practice has been running rampant for decades when people like yourself do nothing or say nothing about it
I think a pretty quick fix would potentially be a sensor on the end of that external dumping valve that automatically alerts and logs in the ships equivalent of a black box whenever oil is detected leaving the valve, and how much per hour or something. Can't say it's the best option though. Excellent content, thank you for doing this investigation!
This is already fitted to vessels, the system described in this video is to bypass that, there are also systems fitted to ships called OWS (oily water separators) which allows the oil to be separated from the bilge water before it is legally discharged, this then passes through a sensor and that monitors the quality. If it falls outside of regulation limits it closes the valve and shuts the system down. So good idea as its already in place but the issue currently is that it can be bypassed. This video is wildly misleading, this rarely happens anymore and the amounts speculated in the video aren't even close to what actually gets dumped. There's no incentive for the seafarer to dump oil, the punishments inlove huge personal fines and prison times.
This has been a thing for years via an OWS, they are bypassing this by hooking up a wilden pump and dumping over the side or tying into the line past the OWS sensor. “Magic pipe” is the term often used here. They save money but not properly discharging it ashore
When I was in the US Navy on a Destroyer in 1976, it was not uncommon as a "fireman" to go "Bilge Diving" while underway. One time, the sea valve would not close for the Pit Sword - which was the 'Rod Meter' used to gauge our speed. We would open the valve to manually with a hydraulic lever, drop the device through the hull and a double thick neoprene gasket would help keep anything from draining out, or sea water from entering. Well one day, the gasket broke and the sword pushed part of it into the ocean! So we had to remove the deck plates and climb down into the brackish liquid (complete with human waste from lazy engineers who didn't want to climb up to the main deck to visit the head), to open the valve of an opening of about 3" x 7 ". Then yank out the gasket, while seawater gushes in. By the time we got the valve closed, the bilge water level was 8" below the fireroom deck plates and just below my chin. YUCK!!! Even though we wore coveralls, once that job was finished we had to walk outside on the main deck to enter the head with the showers. That was the worst day of my 3 years on that ship!
These brave whistleblowers are doing a great job, we need more like them. The ships should have some kind of locking system that’s only active at ports. How hard would that be to retrofit all ships? I’m betting it’s a money problem
Wow this is crazy, had no idea about it and is such a significant issue! I hope something will be done about it, like enforcing harsher fines on ships when it is detected
In my 15 years at sea I never worked on a single ship where we performed illegal discharge of bilges. (Maersk, Dockwise) It seems a more common practice with questionable companies. I'm a Chief Engineer now and anyone illegally pumping bilges overboard can expected to be fired on the spot. If a company would pressure me into these practices I'd resign.
Wow. So that was what we saw from the plane while approaching Manila Bay ☹️ Took some photos and a short video to show my friends, but no one knew what it was until RU-vid suggested your video.
Very very sad, how many tunes they are pulling each year, I can't think... Please find everybody who responsible for polluting our ocean, not for us but next generation. Thank you so much for the whistleblowers...
Just so everyone watching this knows, bilge dumping became illegal in the 1990's and the fines for it are very severe. I am a seafarer and deal with this stuff on a daily basis. Every single drop of oil, fuel and water on board a ship is accounted for in what's called the "oil record book". A controlled document issued to every vessel on the ocean and it is regularly inspected by the US coast guard. We have tanks on board where bilge water is pumped to and processed by what's called an oily water separating machine. It discharges clean water over the side and the separated oil is retained on board to be sent ashore when the ship docks next. Absolutely nothing goes over the side on ships anymore. Seafarers face imprisonment, heavy fines and will never be able to sail again if they are found to be dumping bilge water. This is international law and not just in the US. We are paranoid of getting in trouble for things like this aboard ships.
Thank you for putting in all this work for exposing such malpractice! Something I asked myself while watching this: Is it possible to measure the divination between the expected amount of bilge and the amount ships arrive with at ports, record that and check the amounts that they discharge in a proper manner? Then all the satellite images would not be necessary.
not really, the amount just tells you how much parts of the ship leak obviously no leak at all would be incriminating on ships of that size, but estimating how much there should be is not a straightforward process if you tried to standardize it, badly maintained ships would keep dumping, and well maintained ones would start deliberately dumping oil and sea water into their bilge to get believable results, and eventually give up on high maintainance standards
I was on an aircraft carrier. I felt so bad that we never properly disposed of trash. We had proper ways of doing it but sailors were so eager to get off of work in a timely manner they just chucked it over the side... It is never talked about..
i am a mariner and i asure you we are not allowed to dump bilge water. the bilge pump use in the said video is not a bilge pump but a pneumatic pump use in an oil pollution when oil pollution occured in the vessel. we pump out bilge water using a machine called oily water separator.
@@incvnsit Means that it's an Indian shipping company that does all the horrific pollution! American and the whole world should sanction India liker Russia for crimes against the environment!
Yeah, I've wondered about this and I got it right years ago. How do we think dumping exhaust and garbage into water is okay and is harmless? It comes right back at us when we eat from our waterways or we filter the water. There are so many things we need to re-think.
There is one solution to this: Automatic bilge and clean drain level sensors, that keeps records of the levels in various parts of the bilge and clean drain tank(s), ship roll and pitch angles (to normalize data during rough weather) and ship location. These records would be part of the MARPOL inspection in order to ensure that the bilge level did not mysteriously evaporate at high seas, but was/is discharged at ports only. Healthy data would show slow rising on bilge and clean drain tank being discharged intermittently. Unhealthy data would show bilge leves dropping fast at high seas, with clean drain levels fluctuating a lot in a short timespan.
It is placed on all ships, since lose fluids can cause danger to stability of the ships. The best sollution for this is a direct line to the "old oil tank". Every ship has one, just not directly connected to engines. Make this a standard rule required for new ships and/or the first upcomming inspection/maintenance of a vessel. Its so simple. This will give new problems, they will start pumping it in the ballast tanks, which are not allowed to be emptied in port of arrival. So they should come up with something to test if oil has been in the ballast tanks. And this will be an issue since the oil can be sucked up while pumping ballast from outside.
You should have at least changed the pitch of voice of the Indian whistleblower guy; they could identify him within milliseconds of listening to him. 🤦🤦
