News Features
A year since X-Press Pearl sinking, Sri Lanka is still waiting for compensation
Article by: MONGABAY
Journalist: Malaka Rodrigo
Date: 06/02/2022
Source: https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/a-year-since-x-press-pearl-sinking-sri-lanka-is-still-waiting-for-compensation/
Article by: MONGABAY
Journalist: Malaka Rodrigo
Date: 06/02/2022
Source: https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/a-year-since-x-press-pearl-sinking-sri-lanka-is-still-waiting-for-compensation/
Will have stricter rules for shipping the plastic that has ended up in this fish
Article by: NRK news
Journalist: Marit Kolberg
Date: 12/16/2021
Source: https://www.nrk.no/urix/vil-ha-plastpellets-klassifisert-som-farlig-last-1.15760195
Following a shipwreck off Sri Lanka, the country has asked the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to classify plastic pellets as dangerous goods. The Norwegian Maritime Directorate supports the proposal.
Article by: NRK news
Journalist: Marit Kolberg
Date: 12/16/2021
Source: https://www.nrk.no/urix/vil-ha-plastpellets-klassifisert-som-farlig-last-1.15760195
Following a shipwreck off Sri Lanka, the country has asked the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to classify plastic pellets as dangerous goods. The Norwegian Maritime Directorate supports the proposal.
"This is probably the worst beach pollution in our history," said the head of Sri Lanka's marine environmental authority, Dharshani Lahandapura, when the disaster became a fact.
The fire in Singapore-registered "X-Press Pearl" lasted for a week in May this year . The container ship had 278 tonnes of bunker oil and 50 tonnes of diesel on board. But it was not just that that worried.
Large amounts of plastic in the seaThe ship also had 87 containers with small plastic balls on board. Plastic pellets are raw materials used to make other plastic products. The little pearls can remind that such children use when they make different patterns and shapes.
A discharge of 100 kilos will produce close to 5 million pellets in the sea. Here, 11,000 tons of pellets had ended up in the sea, according to a report Sri Lanka has sent to the International Maritime Organization IMO. According to a UN report from this summer, there were 1,680 tonnes of pellets. In any case, there is little doubt that the cargo from the sunken ship will continue to pollute the area for generations.
Soldiers from the country's navy, equipped with protective suits and bulldozers, were ordered out to collect millions of plastic pellets , soiled with burnt oil and other chemicals.
The plastic bullets hit land on Negombo Beach, 40 kilometers north of Colombo. The beach is popular with tourists, and the area outside is also used extensively by fishermen. Now it was blocked off.
Last week, many months after the accident, the country's authorities declared that they had collected 1,200 tonnes of pellets from the beaches. No one knows how much has disappeared into the sea.
- Impossible to clean up- Plastic pellets are one of the worse things to lose on board, because it is completely impossible to clean up afterwards, says Nicolay Moe who is a senior adviser in the Oslo Fjord's outdoor council. He has solid experience of trying to clean up when the small pieces of plastic have drifted ashore.
In February 2020, a container ship lost some of its cargo on the border between Denmark and Germany. The plastic flowed with the ocean currents to the Swedish coast, into the Oslo Fjord and down to the Sørland coast .
- Read also: The Norwegian Coastal Administration: - Will never be able to pick up all the bullets
Oslofjorden Friluftsråd coordinated the clean-up work and Moe says that the action is still ongoing, 1.5 years after the accident happened.
There are about 48,000 plastic pellets per kilo, so it is a demanding job to get the small pieces. The plastic can travel a long way when it ends up in the water. After a shipwreck outside South African Durban in 2018, pellets from the shipwreck were found 4,000 kilometers away a year later, writes Australian 9News . Two years later it had reached the coast of Australia.
Large source of microplastics in the oceanNo one knows exactly how much plastic pellets are transported around on boats and ships. But Lars Christian Espenes, head of the international environment section at the Norwegian Maritime Directorate, tells NRK that up to 250 million containers a year are transported by sea.
- Unfortunately, between 500 and 1500 containers end up at sea every year.
Some of these have thus contained plastic pellets which today are not considered dangerous cargo.
- But they are one of the largest sources of microplastics in the sea and the emissions are very large. As long as plastic pellets are not classified as harmful to the environment, the requirements for shipping are not as strict as they would otherwise be, he says.
With a new classification, there would be requirements for where on the ship the containers can be placed. Then there is also the requirement that the packaging of the plastic beads must be more solid.
Espenes believes it would have a good preventive effect.
Norway will also have stricter requirementsEspenes says the Norwegian authorities support the proposal from Sri Lanka. However, it can take more than two years to implement a decision to classify the pellet as dangerous for the environment.
Therefore, the Norwegian Maritime Directorate is now working to ask the IMO to send out a call for such cargo to be treated as dangerous goods and classified as dangerous on an equal footing with toxic chemicals.
But neither is it done in a jiffy. The IMO's subcommittee working on shipping and containers will not meet until September next year.
- It is important to have robust regulations in place. We are also working on rules for tracking containers so that you can find them again when they have been lost, says Espenes.
He admits that it does not go fast, but says that if you have first achieved something in the IMO, it is something you then have a global impact on.
X-Press Pearl inferno: Environmentalist raise concerns on damage assessment process
Article by: Dailymirror.lk
Author: Kamanthi Wickramasinghe
Date: 10/17/2021
Source: https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/X-Press-Pearl-inferno-Environmentalists-raise-concerns-on-damage-assessment-process/131-222554
Article by: Dailymirror.lk
Author: Kamanthi Wickramasinghe
Date: 10/17/2021
Source: https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/X-Press-Pearl-inferno-Environmentalists-raise-concerns-on-damage-assessment-process/131-222554
X-PRESS PEARL MARITIME DISASTER SRI LANKA - REPORT OF THE UN ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY MISSION
Authors: Hassan Partow, Camille Lacroix, Stephane Le Floch and Luigi Alcaro
Date: July, 2021
Source: https://postconflict.unep.ch/Sri%20Lanka/X-Press_Sri%20Lanka_UNEP_27.07.2021_s.pdf
Authors: Hassan Partow, Camille Lacroix, Stephane Le Floch and Luigi Alcaro
Date: July, 2021
Source: https://postconflict.unep.ch/Sri%20Lanka/X-Press_Sri%20Lanka_UNEP_27.07.2021_s.pdf
MV-X Press Pearl fire results in deaths of 176 sea turtles, 04 whales and 20 dolphins, AG informs court
Article by: ColomboPage news desk
Date: 6/30/2021
Source: http://www.colombopage.com/archive_21A/Jun30_1625076912CH.php
Article by: ColomboPage news desk
Date: 6/30/2021
Source: http://www.colombopage.com/archive_21A/Jun30_1625076912CH.php
The X-Press Pearl aftermath: Lack of facilities, standards raise doubts on investigations
Article by: Dailymirror.lk
Author: Kamanthi Wickramasinghe
Date: 6/26/2021
Source: https://www.dailymirror.lk/print/news-features/The-X-press-Pearl-aftermath-Lack-of-facilities-standards-raise-doubts-on-investigations/131-214771
Article by: Dailymirror.lk
Author: Kamanthi Wickramasinghe
Date: 6/26/2021
Source: https://www.dailymirror.lk/print/news-features/The-X-press-Pearl-aftermath-Lack-of-facilities-standards-raise-doubts-on-investigations/131-214771
Beach clean-up updates
Post by: Marine Environmental Protection Authority (MEPA)
Date: 6/25/2021
Source: https://mepa.gov.lk/nurdles-and-debris-cleanup-update/
Post by: Marine Environmental Protection Authority (MEPA)
Date: 6/25/2021
Source: https://mepa.gov.lk/nurdles-and-debris-cleanup-update/
X-Press Pearl: The 'toxic ship' that caused an environmental disaster
Article by: BBC News
Author: Ranga Sirilal & Andreas Illmer
Date: 6/10/2021
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57395693?piano-modal
Article by: BBC News
Author: Ranga Sirilal & Andreas Illmer
Date: 6/10/2021
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57395693?piano-modal
Management of Mixed Hazardous Waste generated from the fire engulfed Ship MV X-press Pearl
Post by: Marine Environmental Protection Authority (MEPA)
Date: 6/02/2021
Source: http://www.cea.lk/web/en/news-and-events/1656-management-of-mixed-hazardous-waste-generated-from-the-fire-engulfed-ship-mv-x-press-pearl
Post by: Marine Environmental Protection Authority (MEPA)
Date: 6/02/2021
Source: http://www.cea.lk/web/en/news-and-events/1656-management-of-mixed-hazardous-waste-generated-from-the-fire-engulfed-ship-mv-x-press-pearl