An Adoption of Marpol 73/78 for Managing Ship-Generated Garbage in Laem Chabang Port : A Case of Shipping Collaborations

Abstract

Ship-generated garbage is harmful to aquatic creatures and ecosystems. To prevent the marine environment from this pollutant, the adequate provision of garbage reception facility (GRF) in seaports is critical. This study contributes the practitioner and the literature by developing collaboration concepts for managing it through four objectives: 1) to survey the levels of existing performances in providing GRF of LCP; 2) to analyze the impact of factors on the motivations of shipping companies in delivering their ship-generated garbage at the GRF of LCP; 3) to analyze the relationship of collaborations between LCP and the shipping companies and suggest how to boost up the collaborations; and 4) to analyze the benefits expected to gain from the collaborations between LCP and the shipping companies. To analyze the data, the multivariate analysis of variance was used in objective 1, 2 and 4 while the ordinal regression model was adopted in objective 3. The data was gathered through the adoption of the questionnaires which were sent to 148 shipping firms. The complete questionnaires were returned from 127 shipping firms with the response rate of 85.81%. The analysis indicates that 1) the frequency of ship berthing at LCP per year, 2) the nationality of the shipping firms and 3) the types of ships operated by the shipping firms, influence on the differences of attitude of ship operators as follow: 1) the performances in providing GRF of LCP and 2) the motivations in delivering their ship-generated garbage at the GRF of LCP. The findings enable us to identify 1) the failure of LCP in maintaining performances required by MARPOL 73/78 and 2) the deficiency in enforcing the national laws of Marine Department of Thailand. Finally, three collaboration models verified by ship operators are developed to alleviate the existing challenges and enhance the marine pollution prevention from ship-generated garbage at LCP.