From BC to the Arctic, Canada must ban scrubber discharge everywhere

Transport Canada’s announcement in March of its new ‘approach’ to protecting British Colombia’s endangered southern resident killer whales (SRKW) signals that the days of ships dumping toxic scrubber wastewater into coastal waters are quickly nearing their end.

Scrubbers — also known as exhaust gas cleaning systems — spray seawater or chemically treated freshwater through ship exhaust to remove sulphur oxides (SOx), a harmful gas linked to respiratory illness and environmental damage. This technology is part of the compliance measures established by the International Maritime Organization and is enforced by Transport Canada to reduce SOx emissions from ships. But there’s a catch: the contaminated washwater is dumped into the ocean. This practice simply shifts pollution