Food Chain News

Offshore vessel owner Maersk Supply Service, A.P. Moller – Maersk,  and The Ocean Cleanup have agreed to extend their collaboration to complete the validation of the system by The Ocean Cleanup which is said to be able to consistently capture significant quantities of plastic from the ocean. The Ocean Cleanup, which has established the plastic capture system said the next step for The Ocean Cleanup is to validate the system from an engineering and ecological perspective, allowing it to demonstrate to governments…

RINA, an international company specializing in inspection, certification, and engineering consultancy, and Italian energy company Eni have signed an agreement to jointly develop initiatives that can contribute to the energy transition and decarbonization of their respective operations and particularly maritime transport.The agreement focuses on the use of HVO (Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil) biofuel produced by Eni in its Venice and Gela bio-refineries, as well as of other energy carriers such as “blue” or “green” hydrogen and ammonia from biogenic…

Brazil sank a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean off its northeast coast, the Brazilian Navy said, despite warnings from environmentalists that the rusting 1960s French-built ship would pollute the sea and the marine food chain.The 32,000-tonne carrier had been floating offshore for three months since Turkey refused it entry to be scrapped there because it was an environmental hazard and the ship was towed back to Brazil.The carrier was scuttled in a "planned and controlled sinking" late on Friday…

While the supply chain mess has left consumer globally wanting for everthing from cars to treadmills, the latest hit is arguably the worst: a shortage of McDonalds french fries in Japan's roughly 2900 branches!Japanese customers will have to settle for a small serving of McDonald's fries for the next month or so after the fast-food chain said it was limiting portions due to shipping problems.

A confession. I'm part of a very big problem that's easy to ignore. Last year, I contributed the U.S. average-per-person 300 pounds of plastic garbage to wherever it went after convenient curbside pickup. So out of sight, out of mind, right? Not really, but does it matter? Yes, it does.In a fascinating recent report, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine politely told us that we're choking ourselves to death on manufactured plastic waste and that 80% of the harmful plastic in the ocean comes from land-based sources.It's the micro-plastics…

Unable to get a slot on a container vessel, Lee Sang-hoon is considering using fishing trawlers docked for repair in the South Korean port of Busan to meet surging export orders for the car engine oil he sells to Russia."China is the black hole in this shipping crisis, all the carriers are headed there," said Lee, owner of Dongkwang International Co. in Busan which makes about 20 billion won ($17.60 million) in annual revenue."Those fishing boats out there could be an answer for us because we're already one month behind schedule.

Antarctica, the world’s last true wilderness, has been protected by an international treaty for the last 60 years. But the same isn’t true for most of the ocean surrounding it.Just 5% of the Southern Ocean is protected, leaving biodiversity hotspots exposed to threats from human activity.The Western Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the continent and one of its most biodiverse regions, is particularly vulnerable. It faces the cumulative threats of commercial krill fishing…

This is a technical article related to risk assessment, which is incredibly central to maritime endeavors. We operate in an environment with many unknowns and high unpredictability, and anything we do requires a risk assessment. In fact, naval architects, marine engineers, ship’s engineers and, most of all, ship masters do nothing but cast whatever they do in terms of risk.Risk assessment can be mathematically evaluated, but most of us analyze risk based on experience. Let’s face it…

Assessing the health of coral reefs in the Kingdom of TongaHealthy coral reefs provide critical ecosystem services for millions of people globally, but with climate change and anthropogenic stressors, the landscape of these habitats is regularly shifting. The science and conservation community has realized the importance of baseline studies to help track how these precious reef ecosystems are changing. The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation launched the Global Reef Expedition…

NOAA  announced a total of $2.7 million in grants supporting 14 projects to address the harmful effects of marine debris on wildlife, navigation safety, economic activity, and ecosystem health. With the addition of non-federal matching contributions, the total investment in these marine debris projects is more than $5.2 million.The grants, selected competitively from 82 community-based marine debris removal and research proposals received this year, are spread across 10 U.S. states and territories and 2 federally recognized tribes.

Profiled in the March 2019 cruise edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News is Sven Lindblad, intrepid explorer and wildlife photographer Sven Lindblad blazed the trail for environmentally sensitive travelers to Antarctica on Lindblad Expedition’s fleet of cruise ships with National Geographic.You can tell a lot about a man by whom his heroes are, whether famous athletes, virtuoso musicians, brave warriors or movie stars. As we age, we choose our heroes by their moral compass…

Pope Francis, who has spoken strongly for action against global warming in recent years, called on Saturday for people to work together to stop the world's oceans filling up with plastic waste."We cannot allow our seas and oceans to be littered by endless fields of floating plastic," the pope said. "We need to pray as if everything depended on God's providence, and work as if everything depended on us."The pontiff's comments are from a message for the fourth annual prayer day…

The SMM 2018 scheduled to take place September 4-7, 2018, in Hamburg, Germany, is held every two years and is the traditional launching platform for a variety of commercial shipping and shipbuilding technologies. Five new marine technologies to look for in Hamburg include:Dredging TechCompany: HydrexBooth: B7.505Product: Dredging innovationHydrex will unveil a new concept developed to protect the marine environment from the spread of contaminated sediments during dredging operations.

The EU working party responsible for advising the EU Brexit negotiators paid a visit to the port of Antwerp on Monday 28 May. The working party is made up of representatives of the 27 EU countries, the European Commission and the European Council. During their visit to the Border Inspection Post and the Antwerp Gateway Terminal the European diplomats learned about the various procedures involved in importing and exporting goods in and out of the European Union. The aim of the visit was to find out the practical implications of the various Brexit scenarios. Jacques Vandermeiren, CEO van het Havenbedrijf Antwerpen said: "The UK is an extremely important market for the port of Antwerp, generating an annual freight volume of more than 14 tonnes.

The number of plastic bags found in the seas around Britain has significantly dropped since 2010 as European governments crack down on their use, researchers said on Thursday. The percentage of trawls by fishermen that catch at least one plastic bag in the greater North Sea, off Britain's east coast, more than halved since 2010 to 16 percent, scientists in Britain and the Netherlands said. Prior to 2010, the average was 40 percent, said the study which spanned 25 years. Several European countries…

ABB said it is providing the shipboard systems and systems expertise that will support the research voyages undertaken by ‘By the Ocean we Unite’, a charitable organization whose mission is to highlight the damage done by the millions of tons of plastics that end up in the world’s oceans every year. The group has installed a state of the art Marine Advisory System including SPOS Onboard weather routing software from MeteoGroup, on the sailing yacht Fantastiko to help crew route-plan and monitor weather conditions on a research voyage in waters off Rotterdam…

The vastness of the sea and its sometimes harsh conditions often pose a challenge to marine researchers. In the North Sea near Heligoland, scientists from the Thünen Institute for Sea Fishing, the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the Helmholtz Center Geesthacht (HZG) have now installed an extraordinary device: an optical-acoustic underwater observatory. It is capable of capturing and automatically identifying the smallest marine life underwater - around the clock and even under conditions where no research ship can leave the port. Microscopically small creatures, fish larvae, jellyfish as well as youth stages of many snails and echinoderms - all this is counted as zooplankton.

Wilhelmsen Ships Service (WSS) is aiming to consolidate its position within the Ships Agency segment by building stronger agent-customer relationships. By doing so, Frederic Fontarosa believes the firm can offer enhanced efficiency, understanding and value. Frederic Fontarosa is a people person. Mixing an easy going, laid back French-American drawl with suddenly energetic outbursts on subjects close to his heart, he’s engaging to talk to and easy to like. Seated  in his Houston office…

Sinking a 6,000-ton, 371-foot former cargo vessel to help create an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico is a herculean feat, one only accomplished with strict adherence to rigorous federal and state environmental regulations. When the cargo ship Kraken was recently sunk 67 miles off the Galveston coast, Matrix New World Engineering helped the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department Artificial Reef Program ensure that the vessel was free of environmental hazards and safe to support coral, fish, sea turtles and other aquatic life.

Algae that live in and under the sea ice play a much greater role for the Arctic food web than previously assumed. In a new study, biologists of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) showed that not only animals that live directly under the ice thrive on carbon produced by so-called ice algae. Even species that mostly live at greater depth depend to a large extent on carbon from these algae. This also means that the decline of the Arctic sea ice may have far-reaching consequences for the entire food web of the Arctic Ocean. Their results have been published online now in the journal Limnology & Oceanography. The summer sea ice in the Arctic is diminishing at a rapid pace and with it the habitat of ice algae.

Tropical coral reefs lose up to two thirds of their zooplankton through ocean acidification. This is the conclusion reached by a German-Australian research team that examined two reefs with so-called carbon dioxide seeps off the coast of Papua New Guinea. At these locations volcanic carbon dioxide escapes from the seabed, lowering the water’s acidity to a level, which scientists predict for the future of the oceans. The researchers believe that the decline in zooplankton is due to the loss of suitable hiding places. It results from the changes in the coral reef community due to increasing acidification. Instead of densely branched branching corals, robust mounding species of hard coral grow, offering the zooplankton little shelter.

A new ambient-temperature food examination facility has been formally opened at the Port of Felixstowe, the Port of Britain, by Transport Minister, Robert Goodwill MP. The £4 million investment included a major refurbishment and expansion of the examination facilities and the provision of new offices for Suffolk Coastal Port Health Authority. “This new state-of-the-art facility will ensure that vital imported products stay as fresh as possible. Some 40 per cent of the food on our supermarket shelves arrives by sea, so it must be checked efficiently in the most hygienic conditions. “The new inspection facilities are built to an incredibly high standard – safe, clean and hygienic – to maintain the integrity of the food chain to the highest requirements of upcoming legislation.

The latest Container Shipping Forecaster from Maritime Strategies International highlights the contrasting fortunes of liner operators and tonnage providers. The entire container shipping industry remains under significant pressure. Whilst freight rates have improved marginally from the extreme lows seen over the middle of the year, most liner companies are now at best breaking even, with weaker lines still probably in a loss-making position. The situation is even worse for charter owners, with vessel earnings marooned below operating costs for most mid-sized vessel classes.