The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) received twin honours at the inaugural Seatrade Asia Awards held in Singapore Tuesday evening, winning both the Port Authority Award and the Environment Protection Award.
The Environment Protection Award went to the MPA and NewEarth Pte Ltd for their joint efforts in the development of Crystallisation Technology to recycle maritime and other industrial waste products.
The votes for the Environment Protection Award were cast based on a number of guiding criteria: new technology or significant improvements to existing technology that can reduce or prevent marine and atmospheric pollution; and emergency response strategies.
The two other finalists for the Environment Protection Award were Castrol Marine Ltd and IHI Marine United.
The Crystallisation Technology, which was successfully completed in 2005, offers a cost effective solution to safely treat contaminated dredged materials and industrial waste, converting them into environmentally safe construction and reclamation materials, according to a joint statement from NewEarth and the MPA.
NewEarth was able to construct the 'waste-to-resource' plant, which it says the first of its kind in the world, with the help of the MPA and Nanyang Technological University.
Currently, the MPA and NewEarth are working closely to promote the technology to the global maritime community, .
They say the Crystallisation Technology reduces or eliminates disposal and potential pollution issues arising from port and marine activities such as dredging, and disposal of maritime wastes such as oil sludge and copper slag.
Toh Ah Cheong, Director (Technology), MPA, and Roy Tan, Chief Executive Officer, NewEarth, jointly received the award (see photo).
Commenting on the award, Toh said: "The Environment Protection Award recognises MPA's contribution and commitment to marine environment protection and our on-going efforts at driving research and development in, among other areas, clean technologies that help reduce and even eliminate pollutants from maritime activities. We are greatly encouraged by this award and will continue to promote R&D in new technologies for the maritime sector."
The votes for the Port Authority Award were cast based on a number of guiding criteria: investment and infrastructure developments;
throughput and cargo volumes; and regular and quality liaison with shipping lines.
The two other finalists for the Port Authority Award were the Busan Port Authority and the Shanghai International Port Group.
Last year, the Singapore maritime sector registered double-digit growth on various fronts. Container traffic hit 27.9 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a 12.7% increase from the 24.8 million TEUs handled in 2006. Total cargo tonnage climbed 7.8% over 2006 to reach 483.4 million tonnes.
To ensure that Singapore continues to perform well and maintain its status as a leading container transshipment hub port, the MPA began work in late 2007 to develop 16 new container berths at Pasir Panjang Terminal (PPT). This capacity building project, valued at some S$2 billion, will add 14 million TEUs to PPT's container handling capacity when completed.
