Bilge water is one of the causes for marine pollution. Untreated bilge water can contain oil, gasoline, solvents, detergents, chemicals, and more and when discharged in to the sea can negatively affect biodiversity, food, and health in coastal areas, oceans and waterways. Marine Pollution authority governs pollution in the sea all around the world. 90 countries are members.

That authority has set a law that the oil content of bilge water must be less than 15 ppm or parts per million.

What does of 15 parts per million mean?

One drop of diesel in half a liter of water equals 40 parts per million. So it means that this is already 3 times the permissible value.

Bilge water is not exactly water but a mixture of variety of hazardous and nonhazardous substances. It’s a mixture of fresh water, sea water, oil, sludge, lubricants, chemicals, various inorganic salts, and metals (e.g., arsenic, copper, chromium, lead, and mercury) and also has a foul odour. It is often referred to as oily waste.

When released into the environment, it may cause widespread pollution of water and coastal areas, and adversely affect human beings through the consumption of contaminated water or fish.

Diesel and petrol in the bilge water are particularly toxic, but lubricant and hydraulic oils and metals are also very damaging. When a major oil spill happens in the harbour or ocean, most marine pollution authorities are usually quick to respond to clean these up. But small spills resulting from careless refueling or pumping oily bilge water overboard can go unnoticed even though they are a major cause of marine pollution.

Since the toxins prevalent in bilge water pose a significant threat to fish, wildlife, and humans even in small concentrations, untreated bilge water is prohibited from being discharged into the sea without treatment. Oily water separators must be used to extract the accumulated oil to be incinerated, reused, or offloaded in port safely.

MARPOL regulations state that bilge water cannot be directly pumped out into the sea. For this reason, bilge water is first passed through an oily water separator (OWS) where the level of suspended oil particles in the mixture is significantly brought down (less than 15 ppm).

A Smart bilge pump switch can also be used that can control the pump and prevents it from pumping out oil/diesel.

Exalto Emirates can help you contribute towards cleaner water by offering Simple, affordable, and efficient Bilge Oily Water Separators (OWS) and Grey Water Filters which are type approved to suit a variety of leisure and commercial applications to provide control and prevention of water contamination.

Wavestream system isn’t actually a filter, it looks like a filter but it has a coating that attracts oil, and it can absorb 3 times its own weight in oil and allows only clean water to pass through it.