Waste Disposal Oil and gas exploration and production activities generate waste. The majority of these wastes are generated offshore, and so must be returned to the shore for disposal. A wealth of legislation governs waste disposal from offshore installations. This includes garbage management plans which must be created before waste is generated, to transport records for shipment of waste. In addition, each member company of Oil & Gas UK records the amount and disposal route of their waste in the Environmental Emissions Monitoring System (EEMS). EEMS records operator and installation specific data for all atmospheric emissions, liquid discharges and solid wastes. It also provides a starting point for monitoring the final disposal site of offshore wastes. To aid this further, Oil and Gas UK has recently started a study to ascertain where all offshore wastes are finally disposed of, be that a landfill site, or recycling or re-use in another application. A very tiny percentage of wastes created are discharged to the sea; in the case of NORM scale, these discharges are allowed as they are classed as ‘operational discharges’ and hence OSPAR allows discharge at the site of production. The discharges are subject to the OSPAR reduction strategy which aims to have NORM levels at background by 2020. For further information relating to waste legislation, please visit the Oil & Gas UK Environmental Legislation Website

Environment Index

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