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The ICOMIA Podcasts holds the most important conversations for the recreational marine industry. It exists to inform, connect and inspire the global recreational marine industry by sharing conversations with the people shaping its future.
Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Icomia podcast, where we hold the industry's most important
conversations. This is part of the Marina series that's brought to you and supported by elite
marinas. So thank you to them for helping these conversations take place. Today,
we've got a particularly important subject to discuss around MARPOL legislation. So we've got Peter
Warbank from August Race coming on to talk about it. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming
online. Thank you for having me. so let's have some context let's start with your background first
yeah what's your position what's your link to Icomia what are you about yeah so I'm the technical
director from August Race we are a manufacturer of maintenance products for boats so things like
polishes vinyl cleaners that kind of thing general purpose maintenance products and we've been
doing that for probably nearly 15 years now in the marine industry We are members of Icomia and I
am part of the technical committee and the sustainability committee at Icomia. So we've been trying
to see if any of the work that we've done in terms of product development can provide any value to
Icomia and to other members of the industry. Right, perfect. There's lots of different parts of
Icomia. Just for people less familiar, what does the technical committee actually take care of?
What's the purpose there? So the technical committee really is quite expansive.
It deals with everything from, the big thing at the moment is life cycle assessments for boats.
Yeah, of course. Emissions, engines, and the performance of engines and the output and the
regulation. I think it's generally... trying to create harmonization across the industry in all
aspects of that so you know obviously legislation in different countries is interpreted in
different ways so trying to provide a harmonized approach i think is a lot of what the the
technical committee is about yeah this this unity of what's been learned in different geographies
how where does it work well Where does it work less well? Let's all get our heads together and make
sure we have the best possible solution for boating all over the world. Yeah, it's exactly that.
And so you're quite involved in this Marple legislation. Give us some context. What is it? What are
we talking about? Absolutely. Yeah. So a couple of years back, we decided that we would try to see
if we could improve the environmental kind of aspects of our products in terms of the effect on the
environment that our products have not just through the chemical content or the components within
the products but actually the manufacturing process. We managed to reduce our plastic waste by 90%
which was brilliant and then we turned our attention to the actual formulations. So we were trying
to find a framework or a legislation to work to and we came across MARPOL.
and we'd never heard of this before and it's a legislation that's actually been in place since the
1970s so it's not not anything new by any means uh and we spoke to our distributors customers all
sorts of people in the industry effectively yeah and um and knowledge of marpole within the leisure
sector is almost non-existent pretty pretty unbelievable so um we then took the time to try to
reformulate all of our products so that they are in line with MARPA which which asks that or
dictates that products discharged into the marine environment are non-harmful so they have to be
certified non-harmful and where that comes into play of course is essentially cleaning a boat in a
marina where it's going to be discharged or rinsed into the into the water yeah and then from there
we've tried to see if we could use the research that we've done to try to aid,
you know, boat owners, boat operators, marinas to also become compliant with Marpol because it's
actually, it is a law, you know, once it's, I think there's a hundred and,
there's around 160 flag states that are party to Marpol globally,
which is... which is obviously the large majority. And that means that they've actually passed that
Marpole legislation into their law. It might be in addition to other local laws,
but it's certainly going to be the bare minimum that's required. And so which parts of the maritime
industry are following this and doing quite a good job of it? And let's say proactively complying
with it? Yeah, well, the commercial sector are... this is part of their everyday operations. But
you could not do it. No, absolutely. If you cargo a vessel, you're in shipping or anything like
that, you're going to follow this. Yeah, yeah. So you can't leave or arrive at a port without
demonstrating compliance with Marpol. Right, but that doesn't happen in a leisure site. No. And so
the result is, well, we're a little bit behind, a little bit lazy or potentially non-compliant.
and that's a bit of a gray area that isn't enforced yeah but yeah it's also a good good reason too
as well absolutely for safety for environmental purposes like yeah i don't think it's laziness i
think it's i think the fact is you know one thing that i've definitely learned during all of this
research is that people want to do the right thing. Everyone you speak to wants to do the right
thing. So the minute that somebody says, oh, this is a green product or an eco product, people's
ears prick up because they want to be doing the right thing. Yeah, of course. Obviously, people
throw that term around quite a lot, eco and green. There's quite a lot of marketing incentives for
it. Yeah, and obviously, you know, hence the word greenwashing. Yeah. But what MARPOL calls for is,
and again this has been in place since the 70s, is fact-based sustainability essentially.
Wouldn't this be helped along with the LCA side, so life cycle assessment, if I understand
correctly and guide me on this, you've got to provide hard data of the full life cycle,
so from sourcing materials, manufacturing, how it's used and then disposed of, of the whole of the
product. By doing that, won't that assist the compliance with the MARPOL legislation?
Yes, it will and it won't. It's almost two different things. So the lifecycle assessment is going
to be measuring how... overall how sustainable that product is and again that can be anything from
like what we're talking about here cleaning cleaning products for boats but also equally for boats
uh you know themselves and you know manufacturers are having certain boat builders having to put
together life cycle assessments that will show you whether or not or it will show you how
sustainable they are the the marpole legislation calls for a product to be non-harmful to the
marine environment so That means that regardless of where it is on the LCA scale,
it still needs to be non-harmful. So life cycle assessment will bring some transparency to it.
Absolutely. Not necessarily say it is not harmful to the marine environment.
Exactly. Two different things. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Right, okay. And look, there's lots of
different parts of the marine industry, lots of different geographies. I'm guessing this is
important to marinas.
boat users and consumers, the manufacturers, who else is this really relevant to?
Well, it's funny, I was thinking about this yesterday and actually it's not just really about boat
owners or the marine industry. So this is applicable to everybody. So even if you don't own a boat,
if you decide that you're going to go to a marina and you're going to empty a container of whatever
that might be. It applies to you. This legislation applies to everybody. It doesn't matter if
you're a marina operator or a boat owner or a charter company or whatever else. If you are using a
product that's harmful to the marine environment, you could be liable to prosecution for breach of
Marpole. And I'm guessing it's going to be particularly top of mind for marine businesses because
they'll be kind of under the microscope and are an obvious entity to kind of lead the charge on
this and be exemplary. Absolutely right, yeah. And again, it's that balance between legislation,
which is obviously talking about... the minimum standard the minimum requirement and actually best
practice which really you know again keying into harmonization we can all agree should be at a
higher level you know um yeah i mean it's it's it's really that it's really that simple okay and in
terms of if you're a marine organization you're looking to essentially find out about this what's a
good source of information what's a good place to start Well, you can go to the IMO's website,
the International Maritime Organization's website. It has everything that you would need on there.
It's a fantastic resource. Similarly, Icomia have recently published some guidance for the leisure
marine industry. That's available on their website. We also have it available on our company
website at August Race. So, yeah, there's plenty of information out there.
I think that the... something that would be really important for people to do is to ask their
suppliers are these products suitable for use in in the marine environment you know when you buy a
boat wash for example um an interesting uh an interesting stat we looked at 46 different boat wash
products a really really basic um sort of piece of research we just googled boat wash msds so
material safety data sheet and a material safety data sheet will give you the breakdown of that
product. This is exactly what it is. These are the important bullet points of that product and
whether or not the effect that they have on the environment, among other things, personal safety
included. We looked at 46 different products and we downloaded the MSDSs for those.
Of those, nearly 70% were classified as harmful to the marine environment.
70% of the product being used to clean boats, just boat wash,
basic boat wash, used weekly, daily, often in marinas all around the world, is classified as
harmful to the marine environment. Right, so they weren't necessarily saying it's not. They weren't
necessarily greenwashing it, it was just products available on the market. You go to a chandauri,
you go, yeah, that one will do the job I need it to do. 70% of those were actually harmful to the
marine environment. Where do people... their boats very close to, if not in, the marine
environment. Absolutely right. And actually, interestingly, some of those products that we looked
at claimed to be eco products, which was quite shocking. Sounds like a problem. Yeah, it is a huge
problem. And so how do you think this is going to unfold? So in an ideal world, next few years,
I mean, ideally immediately, but how can the industry... What's the good guidance?
What's the way forward to... to resolve this? I think it needs to be from the top down. Marina
operators, for example, they already do a fantastic job with these sorts of things.
They're very clear on the way that boats should be fuelled in marinas and people shouldn't be
wandering around with fuel cans. They're very clear on how to...
manage black and grey water, how to manage waste oil. So it's actually not a huge kind of change to
just include those extra footnotes in a birth contract or placards on site. Even just,
you know, contacting birth holders and letting them know, hey, did you know that actually you have
obligations under Marco? Yeah, they've got a great educational opportunity there, aren't they?
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like they're the connection to the marine environment. So as people are
passing through them. whether it's literally just a notice or you know something yeah they've got
that opportunity of the contact with the boat owners definitely operators so yeah and contractors
on site so if a contractor arrives when they go onto site they need to demonstrate that they have
public liability insurance and similarly they perhaps could be asked the question you are aware
that you know while on site here you should be compliant with marpole yeah and then the other thing
is insurance companies because the other interesting point with this is if you In theory,
if you were prosecuted for breach of Marpol, that is classed as an illegal act. So your insurance
company can't protect you because you can't insure an illegal act. And then that leads on to the
marina operator themselves. Can they demonstrate that they've raised awareness of the need to
comply with Marpol? Because if they can't, and they are then subsequently prosecuted, again,
their insurance company aren't likely to support them. You know, unless they can demonstrate that
they've taken adequate measures. So it's actually this little thing of this person cleaning their
boat in a marina has all these knock-on effects. And it's actually the biggest area of chemical
pollution in the world, I would say. It's got to be. You know, just with some sort of estimates and
basic calculations, you are talking probably in excess of... two to three hundred litres of harmful
chemicals based on that figure of 70% being discharged into the sea every year and it could be
really easily prevented or certainly significantly reduced.
And so when you talk to marine businesses about this, particularly marinas and stakeholders like
that, what's your kind of one word of advice or the priority that should be? be in their head when
they're thinking about Marpol compliance and legislation. It's really just ask the question. I
think that applies to everybody. So if you go into a chandlery and you grab a bottle of boat wash,
just ask the question. That will prompt the person that runs the chandlery to call his distributor
and ask the question. Find out. Yeah. And the distributor will then contact the manufacturer and
ask the question. And the same with people on site. If somebody says, oh, I can see you cleaning
your boat. That's fantastic. Looks lovely. Just to clarify, can you just make sure that product's
non-harmful in line with Marpol? That'll start a conversation. They'll mention that to somebody
else in the marina. It wouldn't take a great deal. Peter, thanks for coming on the podcast.
And for having me. Pleasure. I've learned a lot. Everybody, if you enjoy content like this, make
sure you're following the Icomia podcast to see plenty more like this. Look at the committees,
look at what they do. This one's from the technical committee. There's plenty more of them. And
this is part of the Marina series that's supported by Elite Mariners. So thank you to them for
helping these conversations take place. All being well, we'll see you again next time. Bye for now.