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Hungry SludgeHammer Eats Marine Waste
01 Oct 2007
The Liverpool based Bibby Line, which owns and operates ships, offshore units and floating accommodation barges, recently deployed a vessel of the latter type, 'Bibby Progress', to Nigeria, where it was to house some 700 workers for a number of months.
That many people were going to produce a lot of waste and Bibby needed away to dispose of it without discharging untreated material directly to sea. Bibby chose SludgeHammer, an American developed system that uses billions of microbes to 'eat' the waste.
Two tanks on board Bibby Progress hold 700 tons of toilet, kitchen and laundry waste. SludgeHammer installed its aerobic bacterial generators to the tanks, where they produce a proprietary blend of bacteria and enzymes. These flourish and feed on the waste, taking just four days to clear both tanks before the cycle starts again.
Bibby Line accommodation services managing director Jon Osborne said, 'Because of where it is deployed, everything about Bibby Progress must be self sufficient, including waste disposal. Couple that with not being able to discharge untreated waste to sea for obvious environmental reasons, and we were faced with an interesting problem to solve. And we believe that by using SludgeHammer we have come up with an interesting answer.'
Chevron Nigeria has chartered Bibby Progress, one of eight Bibby Line 'Coastel' vessels, to house workers constructing Chevron Nigeria's Escravos gas to liquids plant in the Warri Delta. As well as SludgeHammer, Bibby Progress also features a water purification system and on board power generation which make it self reliant to operate anywhere in the world.
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