Op-Ed: From BC to the Arctic, Canada must ban scrubber discharge everywhere

By Andrew Dumbrille and Elissama Menezes

Originally published by the National Observer on Fri, Aug 29, 2025

Transport Canada's announcement of a new approach to protecting BC's endangered southern resident killer whale population may signal a ban on the dumping of scrubber wastewater in coastal waters, but without expanding the ban along all of Canada's coasts, it likely will just push the problem into waters elsewhere. Photo by Shutterstock

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 then dumped into the ocean. This practice simply shifts pollution from the air to the sea, exposing people, marine wildlife and fragile ecosystems to a toxic mix of heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other hazardous pollutants. 

The new SRKW strategy marks the first time the federal government has committed to banning scrubber discharges. The whales have been listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act since 2003 and there are only 73 individuals left. The strategy outlines several measures: slowing ships to reduce underwater noise, implementing ship no-go zones, increasing the approach distance for whale-watching vessels and managing salmon fisheries to ensure adequate food supply for the whales. Included among these measures is a line that could be easily overlooked but carries enormous weight: 

“Phased-in prohibitions on the discharge of washwater from exhaust gas cleaning systems, or scrubber systems, in Southern Resident Killer Whale critical habitat under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001”

The federal prohibition comes as global momentum is building behind the ban of scrubber discharges. OSPAR — the body through which 15 governments and the European Union cooperate to protect the Northeast Atlantic — recently agreed on a scrubber ban. In just the past year, Denmark, Sweden and Finland have all introduced prohibitions in their own waters. 

Last fall, Transport Canada conducted an online consultation on scrubber use in Canadian waters. The list of participants and results have yet to be made public. From civil society organizations, however, there were multiple submissions, including one from the Clean Arctic Alliance, of which our organization, Equal Routes, is a member. That submission highlighted the urgent need for a ban in the Canadian Arctic to safeguard food security and maintain ocean health. 

The case for a ban is even more compelling in the Arctic, where Transport Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada’s own studies show that scrubber use increases black carbon emissions. Black carbon is a “super pollutant” with 900 times the climate-warming power of CO2. It accelerates the melting of snow and ice — exacerbating the Arctic climate crisis — and it poses serious health risks to coastal and Indigenous communities. In the Arctic, scrubbers are a triple threat to people, biodiversity and the climate. 

While the killer whale prohibition is a welcome step toward protecting whale habitat — and a clear signal that scrubber dumping’s days are numbered — there could be harmful unintended consequences. A localized ban may push ships to skirt their habitat and discharge their toxic wastewater just outside the zero discharge zone, creating new dumping grounds that could become heavily polluted. 

The killer whale restrictions open the door to considering bans in other sensitive areas. Scrubber pollution is proven to harm a wide range of species, ecosystems and communities. If we are serious about protecting people, wildlife and habitats, a scrubber ban in Canadian waters beyond the Pacific — and especially in the less resilient and climate vulnerable Arctic — must follow.   

Ultimately, we need a complete ban on the use of scrubbers globally and in the meantime the discharge of scrubber wastewater should be banned in all Canadian waters. Transport Canada has shown it has the regulatory tools to do this in the Canada Shipping Act. Given the proven harms of discharging toxic pollutants into our seas and the atmosphere — including black carbon — nowhere in the ocean, community harvest areas, or wildlife habitat should be subjected to this pollution.

Andrew Dumbrille and Elissama Menezes are Co-Directors at Equal Routes, a member of the Clean Arctic Alliance and Canadian non-profit focusing on shipping sustainability, decarbonization, and ocean health