During the transportation of Chilean grapes to South Korea, Chilean fish are brought into the waters off the coast of Busan, South Korea by ballast water, affecting the marine ecosystem. To solve this problem, ballast water treatment systems (BWTS) are being introduced, an important environmental protection measure that is being regulated internationally.
Ms. K, a Korean woman, enjoys eating Chilean grapes because they can be eaten with their skins and have a high sugar content. She orders grapes from Chile every day. Every morning, Ms. K enjoys eating fresh, high-sugar Chilean grapes for breakfast. She never thinks about how far these grapes have traveled to get to her, but she is happy to know that they are always fresh.
After receiving the order, the Chilean vineyard loads the grapes onto a container ship and sends them to South Korea. The grapes are carefully packaged to make the long voyage to Mr. K’s table and are carefully managed to maintain their freshness. This process involves many people working together to ensure that the grapes are of the highest quality right up until the moment they reach Mr. K’s table.
The container ship has traveled halfway around the world and docked at the port of Busan, but the fish in the waters off the coast of Busan are in for a surprise: they’ve never seen anything like it before. For the fish in the waters off the coast of Busan, it’s like a whole new world has suddenly appeared that they’ve never known before. The moment they come face-to-face with the unfamiliar Chilean fish, the ecosystem loses its delicate balance and begins to show signs of change.
Did you know that when you order Chilean grapes, you also get Chilean fish? This fact may come as a surprise to many people, but it happens every day. How did these fish end up in South Korea? Before I explain why, you, the reader, need to understand what ballast water is. In order for a ship to float and move in the ocean, the depth at which the ship is submerged in the water must be maintained. To do this, the ship carries a certain amount of seawater on board. In other words, seawater is added and removed from a certain space (tank) to maintain the equilibrium of the ship. The seawater used to maintain this equilibrium is called ballast water.
Container ships carrying grapes from Chile are also loaded with this ballast water, or seawater, but it contains a wide variety of Chilean biodiversity. Not just fish, but tiny plankton, microscopic marine life. These creatures are very small and usually of no concern to humans, but the path they travel is global. In the port of Busan, container ships discharge ballast water used on long voyages and load fresh ballast water, and in the process, fish from Chile end up in front of Korean fish off the coast of Busan. This creates a new challenge for the ecosystem off the coast of Busan.
This year, Clarkson, a British shipping analyst firm, projected global container volume in 2024 at 2.08 million TEUs. You may not have seen the unit TEU before: a TEU is one container that is 20 feet long, 8 feet high, and 8 feet wide. It’s just one container, but it’s a reminder that millions of containers from ports around the world are being transported in the same way, meaning that an enormous amount of cargo is being moved on container ships around the world. In the process of this transportation, an enormous amount of fish is also being transported around the world in ballast water. It’s no longer surprising that fish from Chile end up in Busan, or vice versa, or that marine life from Korea ends up on other continents.
This dispersal of fish around the world can have devastating effects on marine ecosystems. It’s the same phenomenon that threatens native Korean ecosystems with invasive species like bullfrogs and bluegills. Jellyfish from North America are found in Europe’s North Sea, mussels from Europe have taken over the Great Lakes in the United States, and crabs from Europe’s Mediterranean Sea are found in Australia and South America, all because of ballast water. If this phenomenon continues, the loss of biodiversity and the disruption of native ecosystems will accelerate, leading to further disruption of marine ecosystems. This could lead to a sharp decline in marine resources in certain areas, or even the complete disappearance of native species. These problems will in turn directly affect people’s livelihoods. Changes in marine ecosystems can adversely affect fishing, tourism, and even the overall marine economy.
A solution to this problem is the ballast water treatment system (BWTS), which is the keyword of this blog post. The basic idea of this treatment system is to keep ballast water clean by reducing or eliminating the presence of organisms in the ballast water using physical and chemical methods, mainly filters and sterilizing substances such as ultraviolet light and ozone. Currently, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) signed the Ballast Water Convention in 2004 and requires all ships to be equipped with BWTS from 2016 for ships with a ballast tank capacity of more than 5,000㎥. The introduction of this system is expected to protect marine ecosystems and promote the sustainable development of the shipping industry.
The cost of installing this BWTS on a single ship is approximately 1 to 1.5 billion. To install it on all 68,190 international container ships around the world would cost a staggering 80 trillion won. Despite this huge cost, in the long run, it is seen as an essential investment to protect marine ecosystems and ensure a sustainable shipping industry. To capture this huge market, shipbuilders everywhere are scrambling to develop new technologies and build more efficient systems. These technological advancements will eventually contribute to both marine environmental protection and economic growth.
