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City maritime bureau to crack down on vessels transporting illegal wastes

SHANGHAI maritime authority said they would step up patrolling of vessels carrying construction wastes from the city after some of them were caught illegally dumping them in a neighboring province.

They said licensed vessels will be fixed with tracking devices while the docks where the vessels are loaded will be strictly monitored.

“Some law breakers mixed domestic garbage and other pollutants with construction wastes and transported them to Taihu Lake and elsewhere in Jiangsu Province. It seriously affected Shanghai’s image,” said Chen Xiaoguang, a spokesperson of Shanghai Maritime Bureau. “The maritime bureau has now joined hands with transport authority as well as greenery and sanitation bureau to crack down such vessels.”

Eight vessels were caught secretly transporting about 4,000 tons of garbage from Shanghai to Suzhou Taihu National Tourism Vacation Zone on July 1. The crew of one of the boats was about to dump the garbage on an abandoned embankment when the authorities raided them.

Chen said licensed boats are allowed to carry construction wastes to disposal centers in Shanghai. However, they are not allowed to cross the city’s borders.

“The boats will be fixed with a tracking device and monitored by the bureau. Any deviation from their regular route will activate the alarm system,” said Chen.

Chen said more inspectors would be deployed at the docks where the vessels are loaded to make sure that construction wastes are not mixed other garbage. Violators including the vessels crew and ship owner stand to face hefty fines.

Boat emission control is also one of the tasks that Shanghai Maritime Bureau plans to deal with in the second half of the year.

As per regulations, vessels entering or berthing at Shanghai’s ports are required to use low-sulfur oil to cut emission, but the bureau said of the 161 oil samples from boats it had collected in the past three months, 56 of them failed to meet the set standard.

Vessels entering or berthing in Shanghai should use oil with a sulfur volume of less than 0.5 percent, while most of them were found consuming oil with a sulfur volume of over 3 percent, which is also cheaper.

Chen said the bureau would buy portable devices for oil sample tests, rather than wait for laboratory results that can take days.

“Low-sulfur oil had little demand before the regulation was enacted. Therefore, there are only one or two suppliers in Shanghai. Most of the time they are out of stock,” Chen said.

Chen said the bureau would approach the development and reform commission to ensure abundant supply of low-sulfur oil in Shanghai.




 

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