New Finish Legislation on ban of discharge
ATTN: ALL
ALL TECHNICAL COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Dear Members,
In early December 2024, the Finnish Parliament approved a law prohibiting cargo ships from discharging wastewater into Finland’s territorial waters in the Baltic Sea.
This legislation, set to take effect in July 2025, positions Finland as the first nation globally to enforce such comprehensive wastewater regulations on cargo vessels.
Early 2025, the amended Act will be available online on Finlex in Swedish and Finnish.
The most relevant changes are the following:
- From 1 July 2025: In Finnish territorial waters, ban on discharges of:
o sewage and sewage effluent from ships (> 400 GT) or smaller ships allowed to transport more than 15 persons, and
o discharge water from open-loop systems.
- From 1 January 2029: In Finnish territorial waters, ban on discharges of EGCS discharge water from closed-loop systems including discharge ban on EGCS residues.
- From 1 January 2030: In Finnish territorial waters
- ban on discharges of grey water from ships (> 400 GT) or smaller ships allowed to transport more than 15 persons with a length over all exceeding 24m. Icebreakers built before 1990 are excluded from the discharge ban.
- Ships must close the overboard valve before entering the Finnish territorial waters and record this event in the ship’s engine logbook or other logbook.
- Ships in domestic traffic in the Finnish territorial waters must keep the grey water overboard discharge valves closed at all times.
- If the ship has delivered grey water to a port reception facility, this shall be recorded in the engine logbook or other similar logbook when and where this took place (date, name of port) and the amount (volume or tons) of grey water discharged ashore.
Kind regards
Emmanuel Vergetis
