In the biggest shake-up the oil and shipping industry has seen for decades, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has just brought into effect a new law designed to significantly reduce the pollution produced by the world’s ships.
This should be cause for celebration, but by installing ‘scrubbers’ (a sneaky mechanism to ‘clean’ the ship exhaust and dump the pollution into the ocean instead), ships are still allowed to continue using highly polluting heavy fuel oil instead of switching to cleaner options.
This loophole must be closed immediately.
Ports, states, and countries around the world have the power to close this loophole themselves by banning scrubber wastewater dumping, and many have already done so. But so far BC and Canada have done nothing.
Write to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Transport to demand they protect our environment and communities from shipping pollution. They must ban emissions-cheating scrubbers immediately.
