BAKU Waste Management

Azerbaijan – Sustainability Efficiencies

At the end of 2019, P&O Maritime Logistics noticed that volumes of waste disposed in Azerbaijan were significantly higher than any other location in the business, even those units that had comparable fleet sizes. These volumes appeared too great, and thus we were presented with an opportunity to challenge the status quo in maritime waste management.

A traditional industry that’s business model has long remained uncontested, we engaged our team in Baku to work with our waste disposal contractor to identify limitations within our reporting systems and any issues onboard our disposal fleet. By scrutinising the data we collected more closely, we were able to isolate a previously-overlooked transportation issue that was impacting the fleet’s efficiency.

As such, it was agreed that our waste disposal work should be reframed, with a focus on eliminating these inefficiencies, and build a new system that prioritised sustainability whilst keeping costs down. We benchmarked several waste disposal options against industry best-practice, and ultimately rolled out a system which best-reduced risk for our people, our environment and our overheads.

In partnership with AZLogistics, our operations are now delivering significantly improved long-term sustainability and cost efficiencies. As of summer 2020, POML’s contracted AZLogistics vacuum trucks are operating at +200% capacity, with waste skips operating at +50% capacity and road tankers operating at a massive +300% capacity.

We are operating fewer waste transfers, which has reduced risk to personnel through less exposure to manual handling, lifting operations and waste itself. In fact, we have managed to eliminate over 200 lifts and 1600 handling operations so far, without impacting the amount of waste we can safely dispose of.

The environment benefits through reductions in solid and liquid waste transfers. We’ve been able to remove 1300 pumping operations, meaning the risk of spills to Caspian Sea and shore releases of waste is greatly reduced. Likewise fewer trips are being made with newer and more efficient trucks, meaning we are saving 187 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere.

Finally, we have reduced costs. More efficient vehicles and larger skips will deliver an estimated $700,000 in savings each year.

POML has achieved such significant environmental improvements and efficiencies thanks to its desire to always question the entrenched ways of working in the maritime industry. We always work with a disruptive mindset, and this allows us to deliver reliable and innovative solutions to problems facing the industry at large.

POML’s data analysis capabilities mean that we are uniquely able to identify trends and anomalies, and then respond to ensure our business is operating in a safe, sustainable and cost-efficient manner, in all areas. In true POML fashion, a challenge provided us with the opportunity to create a new, effective waste management system that has huge benefits for our operations, clients and the world around us all.