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Dieren en planten

Water en land

MARPOL Treaty

The MARPOL Treaty is an international treaty for preventing pollution from shipping. MARPOL stands for MARine POLlution. The treaty was drafted by the IMO (the shipping organization of the United Nations) and was put into force in 1973. The treaty contains regulations concerning discharging oil and other wastes. It consists of five chapters, each dealing with a specific form of pollution. Regulations are found for discharging oil and sanitary and household wastes from shipping and discharging chemicals from tankers. A regulation for air pollution from shipping was ready in 1997. Single-hulled oil tankers were banned as of April 2005.

  • Attachments

    The treaty consists of six appendices, each of which is separately ratified by the countries. In the appendices is: How one must discharge materials which takes place during normal operations on board ships, such as remnants of cargo, (Appendix I and II), remnants of fuel and oil (Appendix I), discharge water Appendix IV), waste (Appendix V) and air pollution (Appendix VI). In addition to a general ban on discharging synthetic materials (Appendix V), dumping is usually allowed under certain circumstances. The appendices concerning remnants of cargo (I and II) were ratified in 2005 by 130 countries, which together make up 97% of the tonnage of the world trading fleet. The Netherlands executes the MARPOL treaty through the Act for preventing pollution through Ships (WVVS).
    According to the MARPOL treaty, dumpuing ship wastes in the North Sea was banned as of 1 February 1991.