Singapore shipping sails to greener future

Pact signed to ban coating hulls with paint that can harm marine life
Grace Chua, Straits Times 1 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE has signed an international convention that aims to clean up the global shipping industry.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said yesterday that the convention rules that ships cannot use paints containing organotins, a type of metallic compound, to coat a ship's hull.

These paints prevent barnacles and other 'illegal aliens' from hitching a ride, but the chemicals they contain can harm marine life and pollute the environment.

Called the International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-Fouling Systems on Ships under the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), it will take effect for Singapore from March 31 this year.

The new ruling applies to vessels registered with Singapore, and also to those calling at its port.

The convention was established in September 2008. Currently, it applies to ships entering or registered to 40 countries, representing more than two-thirds of the world's shipping tonnage.

When barnacles, algae or molluscs attach themselves to a ship's hull, they create drag and slow it down, forcing the vessel to burn more fuel.

And hull fouling can be a way for alien species to travel to foreign waters, sometimes threatening other marine life when a ship makes a port of call.

In the 1960s and 1970s, paints containing the toxic organotin TBT were used to prevent fouling, but this was found to cause deformities in marine organisms.

Now, most ships are coated in copper-based paints that repel or kill barnacles, or silicone paints that make the surface too slick for barnacles to attach themselves to. But the latter are two to three times more expensive than copper paints.

Under the convention, new ships must use non-toxic paints, while ships with TBT paints must add a barrier coating that prevents the chemical from leaching.

'Where Singapore owners are concerned, this is not a problem - they have already taken steps to adhere to the convention,' said Mr Daniel Tan, executive director of the Singapore Shipping Association.

But as one of the world's busiest ports, Singapore places great importance on protecting the marine environment, said MPA chief executive Lam Yi Young.

Besides the anti-fouling convention, Singapore is a party to a number of anti-pollution conventions, including those on oil and chemical pollution.

Dr Serena Teo, from the National University of Singapore's Tropical Marine Science Institute, said organotins might be out, but the additives in copper-based paints were not entirely innocent. For instance, the herbicide irgarol has caused seagrass die-offs in Japan.

But if invasive species are to be controlled, Dr Teo - who is developing a pharmaceutical anti-fouling additive - said ships' ballast water must also be treated so it does not transport alien organisms.

Such treatment systems exist but they must be tested for effectiveness in tropical waters like Singapore's, she added.