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Posted by Allen Newton
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4 August, 2025
FREMANTLE Ports is leading the charge to tackle Australia’s poor record in recycling ship-generated waste.
The move comes after senior environmental adviser Rebecca James returned last year from an international study tour where she found that in other developed nations, landfill is being treated as a last resort for maritime waste, unlike the default solution still in place in Australia.
Her findings also pointed to the need to better align landside reception facilities to the international requirements in place on ships to manage and segregate waste.
As a result of her findings Fremantle Ports has established a process for cruise ship recyclables to be inspected onboard by Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) biosecurity officers and then released for recycling.
Due to Australia’s strict biosecurity requirements, waste from international vessels cannot be recycled.
With tonnes of clean, segregated recyclables being offloaded from cruise ships - only to be mixed with general waste destined for landfill Fremantle Ports saw the need to advocate for this to change.
The pioneering work led to Ms James being awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship to support further research in this area.
She travelled to Singapore, the UK, Europe, the United States and Canada in 2024 aiming to benchmark international best practices in port waste reception and biosecurity waste management, and to bring these learnings back to Australia.
These travels included visiting ports to observe operational practices on the ground, inspecting a variety of different waste facilities, and meeting with regulators and policymakers to understand the levers and incentives driving performance in different regions.
Insights from this work informed the establishment of a national Maritime Recycling Risk Assessment Trial led by DAFF and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) supported by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW).
The six-month trial gathered data on recycling of waste from international ships at selected Australian ports and rolled into a broader national maritime waste recycling pilot led by DAFF that is currently underway.
More than 130 recycling inspections have been conducted under this pilot across eight ports, with DAFF now progressing the development of a national policy for the recycling of shipping waste. Work is also underway to expand the program to include commercial vessels and broader operational waste streams.
Other key initiatives by Fremantle Ports to support the broader Churchill Fellowship findings and recommendations include the development of a Port Waste Management Plan for Ship Generated Waste for Fremantle Ports, based on IMO (International Maritime Organization) and ISO standards, to be shared as a model with Ports Australia members and other key stakeholders.
The port is collaborating with Western Australia’s Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, landfill operators and waste service providers to consolidate biosecurity waste data across the state, while advocating for this information to be included in national waste reporting frameworks.
It is also exploring the approvals process for residual biosecurity waste to be redirected from landfill to Australia’s first waste-to-energy facility, the Kwinana Energy Recovery Project. This includes ongoing national advocacy efforts to ensure biosecurity waste is considered in future energy recovery planning.
The port is collaborating with AMSA on a national port waste reception facility roundtable, to be held later this year, which will address barriers and opportunities to recycling and broader industry improvements.
It also aims to advance industry standards by providing subject matter expertise to the Green Marine technical committee, a maritime environmental certification program, to consider expanding their port sustainability criteria to include shoreside reception of shipboard-generated waste.
Ms James will present on this work at both the Australian Cruise Association Conference and the Waste and Resource Recovery Conference in September.
Her efforts are also acknowledged by being named a finalist in the 2025 WA Waste Sorted Awards in the Waste Champion category. Winners will be announced on 11 September 2025.
