Shipping industries prioritize environmental protection and efforts to protect the environment from pollution. According to Salomon & Markus (Eds.) (2018), the ecological policy ensures industries maintain high standards of safety and adherence to required legislations to eliminate pollution occurrences. However, concerned parties improve their procedures to achieve Zero spills; hence, protecting the waters (Walker et al., 2019). Therefore, people should take responsibility for preserving the environment, and the criminal penalties system should reinforce environmental legislation internally to prevent deliberate pollutants discharge from ships into seas effectively.
The ship’s crew is responsible for keeping the sea safer and preventing oil spillage from ships. MARPOL Annex 1 aims to completely eliminate pollution by oil, thus protecting the marine environment. MARPOL Annex 1 ensures oil filtering equipment and tankers are in good working condition and well-maintained to avoid accidental oil spillages (Protection from oil, chemicals, harmful substances (MARPOL Annex I-III)). Therefore, criminal penalties system in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency should reinforce legislations to protect sea creatures and humans from oil pollution or wastes from ships. The criminal penalties system should hold accountable ships that accidentally spill oil or ignore operational oil leakages that get into the water. Pollution oil in water spreads faster depending on the composition and relative density of the oil (Kaushik, 2021). The civil liability system should redress the public and ship crews and charge them following oil pollution since it affects sea animals and humans.
The civil liability system and criminal penalties system should control the identified emission standards to ensure that they are planned and implemented according to the environmental targets, policy, and objectives. The systems should document the policy to ensure that the public and companies follow the standards to ensure correct and safe operating procedures in managing and preserving the environment. Therefore, the government and policymakers need support from the public to reach the environmental protection goals and enhance the safety and well-being of people.
References
Kaushik, M. (2021). MARPOL Annex 1 explained: How to prevent pollution from oil at sea. Marine Insight. Web.
Protection from oil, chemicals, harmful substances (MARPOL Annex I-III). Deutsche Flagge. (n.d.). Web.
Salomon, M., & Markus, T. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook on marine environment protection: Science, impacts and sustainable management. Springer.
Walker, T. R., Adebambo, O., Feijoo, M. C. D. A., Elhaimer, E., Hossain, T., Edwards, S. J.,… & Zomorodi, S. (2019). Environmental effects of marine transportation. In World Seas: an environmental evaluation (pp. 505-530). Academic Press.