The US-based environmental organization Pacific Environment has released a new report that lays out the case for why the International Maritime Organization (IMO) should immediately ban scrubber discharge into the marine environment.
The IMO’s Pollution Prevention and Response Subcommittee meets from January 27 through January 31, 2025, in London.
The report, titled “Poison in the Water: The Call to Ban Scrubber Discharge, The Health and Environmental Costs Industry Wants Us to Ignore”, underscores the substantial environmental and human health costs of unrestricted scrubber use, and highlights the economic, ecological, and human health consequences of inaction.
“Without a ban on the use of scrubbers and the discharge of scrubber wastewater, or a mandate to use cleaner distillate fuels, ecosystems, ocean resources and coastal communities will continue to be threatened and human health risks will increase,” according to Pacific Environment.
“Scrubber discharge is poisoning our waters and marine environment,” Kay Brown, Arctic Policy Director for Pacific Environment, warned.
“Our report underscores the destructive toxicity of scrubber discharge on the marine environment, impacting humans, wildlife and Indigenous communities’ subsistence activities. The report reveals that most ships have already recovered their initial capital costs making banning scrubber discharge feasible. It’s time to end the use of scrubbers.”
The organization has highlighted key findings:
Poison in the Water builds on a previous paper, “Ship pollution: From air to ocean”. The science on pollution scrubbers and why EPA should ban scrubber discharge, released in August 2024 by Pacific Environment revealed that there is a huge body of scientific work and studies that show that exhaust gas cleaning systems (ECGS) are detrimental to the marine environment, wildlife and people’s health.
Pacific Environment has compiled 26 recent studies showing the breadth and depth of new and substantial data, making the case for why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must ban scrubber discharge.
The use of scrubbers has been on the rise in the past two decades, with the number of scrubber-fitted ships increasing from 243 in 2020 to more than 7,400 at the start of 2025, Pacific Environment said referring to data provided by Clarksons Research.
In related news, Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU), a German environmental association,recently sent a letter signed by 14 environmental protection organizations to the OSPAR Commission, calling for an end to heavy fuel oil and scrubbers. In the letter, the organizations demand that the Atlantic coastal states ban the discharge of wastewater from exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCSs) in the 12-mile zone along the coast.
