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Biological diversity |
Paying attention to worldwide natural resources and ecological environment is the reliability that all multinational companies including COSCO should undertake.
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| ■ Using innoxious paint to protect sea lives |
Currently, the paint used by the hull of COSCO's ships under the water line is innoxious paint. In 2006, COSCO conducted the full-year tracking and researches on the pilot ships of using the organic silicon paint and will decide whether to further promote the organic silicon paint protecting the biological diversity of the ocean based on the actual situation of the real ships and development of the world's paint market.
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| ■ Management over ballast water of ships |
In order to control trim, heeling, draft, stability or stress of ships, ships should be filled with enough ballast water in the ballast water cabin to ensure the safe sailing. So far, it has been confirmed that 500 biological species in the world are spread by the ships' ballast water. Once these ocean lives enter new areas suitable for survival, they may reproduce out of the control to rob local biology species of foods, leading to the rampant wide spreading of harmful vermins and pathogens even the extinction of some biology species. The spreading of the biology species via ballast water has been defined by IMO as one of the “Four Major Damages” faced by the oceans. In order to effectively control the spreading disaster of ocean biology species caused by the discharge of the ships' ballast water, IMO passed the International Convention for Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments in Feb. 2007 to define the discharge criteria of ballast water.
COSCO strictly conforms to the related requirements of the convention and port countries. The Plan for Management of Ships' Ballast Water is developed for every ship, defining the responsibility and the replacement requirements for ballast water, recording the ballast process and conducting the full supervision over ballast water.
In order to actively face the negative influences of the ships' ballast water on the diversity of the sea lives, COSCO has enforced the discussion and researches on the issue. In 2006, COSCO invested RMB16 million to assume the research subject named Physical Purification Processing Technology for Ships' Ballast Water together with Tsinghua University. This project aims to solve influence of the ballast water on the diversity of the sea lives. The research on this subject is now being accelerated, which is expected to be completed and promoted in the near future. It will significantly reduce the investment cost of China in this technology field and improve the ability of the whole shipping industry to protect the diversity of the sea lives. |
| ■ Protect the diversity of sea lives in Yangtze River |
| Protect Yangtze River water resource and protect the Mother River. Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering, located near the Yangtze River, takes the protection of the Yangtze River as a kind of self-conscious activity. The company places the emphases on the oil operation of the outfitted ships (oil products, carrying of fuel oil and processing of oil-bearing waste water), regulating the operation criteria, defining the pollution prevention responsibility and carrying out the anti-pollution measures and emergent measures for oil leaking. At the same time, the environment checking at all level is used to reinforce the employees' consciousness in criteria compliance and pollution prevention. No pollution to the water resources of Yangtze River had ever been happened to the company during the past ten years. |
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