Page No. 111-124: Sustainability in Shipping

Abstract

When thinking about the future, envisioning healthier environment and cleaner surroundings is most desirable. That goal can only be achieved by meticulously adopting the principles of sustainability in every way possible. Sustainability is all about utilizing available resources in an environmentally conscious way and without any form of exploitation, thus greatly minimizing the chance of leaving behind any harmful footprints from our activities. Shipping, being the major means of transporting goods from country to country needs to imperatively, become as sustainable a procedure as possible. The United Nations’ 2030 agenda for sustainable development enlists 17 Sustainable Development Goals, one of them being “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”1 and another one being “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”1.
This paper aims to focus on these two specific goals by discussing two innovative methods. The first one is with regards to oil spills and how a specially manufactured cotton batting can help alleviate the negative impact of one. The second one is about reusing scraps from ships that are being dismantled, producing iron-based compounds from those scraps and dispersing those (safe) compounds into the ocean to boost the growth of phytoplankton which will then be able to absorb more carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere and bring the levels of carbon-dioxide, down.