Huatai Marine received Clubs’ inquiries about administrative fines faced by their entered ships for dumpling food wastes in Chinese waters and provides relevant regulations and interpretations on disposal of food wastes from ships.
General Situation
According to Huatai’s database, about 23% of the fines for garbage disposal handled in2020-2022were for illegally dumping food wastes. Most of them occurred in the Bohai Sea, accounting for 70%, and the Yellow, East and South China Seas each accounted for 10%.
The maximum fine was CNY 70,000, while the lowest fine was CNY 30,000. The average fine per case was CNY43,000.
Characteristics of Cases Related to Administrative Fines on Discharging Wastes
Through analysis of the above cases, it was noted that such fines were mostly occurred when MSA officers conducted inspections and found that the location of garbage discharge contained inthe ship’s Garbage Record Book failed to meet the minimum distance requirements from the nearest land to the garbage disposal location.
Since 2020, China MSA has adopted remote PSC inspection instead of on-board inspection due to the restriction of epidemic prevention. More attention has therefore been paid to the validity of relevant certificates and the correctness of official records of ships, as well as to the inspection of ships for non-compliance through these records.
The main reason for the illegal discharge of garbage is that some crew members are not clear about the position of the ship, ordo not know the baseline coordinates of China’s territorial sea, or lack of understanding that the Bohai Sea is inland water where dumping of food wastes is prohibited.