Boat owners or rig operators face stern boat sewage regulations and steep repercussions surrounding the use of their marine sanitation device.  There are many good reasons for this. For one, if you’re operating a sewage marine sanitation device, you want to make sure that you’re keeping the environment around your boat safe for the good of everyone, including yourself.

In order to ensure that everyone in U.S. waters follows the same rules, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) issues a set of regulations for appropriate marine sanitation device use. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also have comprehensive, easily accessible information to ensure that everyone knows how to make the sea a safe place for everyone to be. 

What are these boat sewage regulations? Do they apply to every marine sanitation device (or all types of MSDs?) Are there any updates boat owners need to know about for 2022? Have the events of the past few years have any impact on marine sanitation device use, or best practices for managing safe discharge? What can happen if you aren’t in compliance—and what do you need to do to ensure that you aren’t going to get slapped with any hefty fines? We’ll cover all of this and more in this handy guide.

When you’re working on a boat or rig over a period of several days, there’s no getting around it: You’ll be using the facilities several times and, well, if your marine sanitation device isn’t maintained properly, that can result in less-than-aromatic situations.

It might seem like a small thing, but an unclean or stinky boat bathroom can definitely affect your quality of life. More than that, a perpetually unpleasant smell coming from your boat’s bathroom can signal a larger issue with your marine sanitation device or other systems aboard your vessel. What might be the root cause of this issue? Is there anything you can do about it? 

In this blog post, we’ll go over common problems that may arise with your marine sanitation device, as well as the ways you can work to make the problem (and the smell) disappear.

When you’re prioritizing maintenance for your vessel or offshore production platform, it’s important to know the reasoning behind your investment. Taking the time to understand what each machine on your vessel does can help clarify why maintenance and replacement parts are crucial for your safety and quality of life while at sea.

One such machine is your vessel’s sodium hypochlorite generator. From time to time, you’ll need to invest time and money into ensuring that this generator is working the way it should. Why is this important? What does your sodium hypochlorite generator do, anyway? What will happen if you don’t care for it as you should? 

We’ll discuss these questions and more in this blog:

When you’re looking for sanitation units for your boat, you’re likely looking to achieve some pretty basic goals. You want the sewage treatment process to be streamlined and contained, you don’t want to have to deal with the sewage directly or notice any unpleasant aromas, and you want all discharge to be compliant with U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) or International Maritime Organization (IMO) standards so you don’t face any fines.