Environmental compliance equipment

Pollution equipment is where an engine room’s paperwork meets criminal law. In 2016 a cruise operator agreed to pay a US$40 million criminal penalty after a newly hired engineer reported a “magic pipe” that had been used to pump oily waste overboard off England. In February 2025 the owner and operator of a bulk carrier were fined US$1.85 million and banned from US ports after a routine Coast Guard inspection found a portable pump and hose rigged to the bilge holding tank. In both cases the equipment was on board and certified. What failed was how it was used, tested and recorded.

Ballast water is the newer test. Since 8 September 2024 every ship under the Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention has had to meet the D-2 discharge standard. During the joint port state control campaign of September to November 2025, “Is the BWMS operational?” was the question ships failed most often in the Tokyo MOU region. Since 26 June 2025 the Hong Kong Convention has also required an Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM), which every existing ship of 500 gross tonnage (GT) and above must have by 26 June 2030.

This course works from the instruments themselves: MARPOL Annex I and resolution MEPC.107(49) as amended, IMO’s Oil Record Book guidance, the BWM Convention and the BWMS Code, the commissioning testing guidance, the Hong Kong Convention, the 2023 IHM Guidelines and the EU Ship Recycling Regulation. Each lesson gives the rules with citations, the numbers you need, the changes coming in 2026 to 2028, and what inspectors and prosecutors actually find.

What you will learn

• Say exactly when oily water may go overboard under MARPOL Annex I regulation 15, and what must stay on board.
• Explain how an oily water separator, its 15 ppm bilge alarm and its automatic stopping device work, and plan the five-yearly calibration and the on-board checks.
• Keep an Oil Record Book that survives a port state control inspection, and recognise the signs of a bypass before a prosecutor does.
• Apply the D-1 and D-2 standards, the BWMS Code and the contingency rules to your own ship.
• Plan a BWMS commissioning test and the annual, intermediate and renewal surveys, and know what the 2026 convention review will change.
• Maintain the IHM after every repair and refit, and know how the Hong Kong Convention and the EU Ship Recycling Regulation apply to your ship.