In May of this year, MSC Loreto sailed through the Western Scheldt to Antwerp. This ship belongs to the new generation of 7 largest container ships in the world. With a length of 400m and a width of 60m, it can carry 24,346 TUE (20ft container).
It was exciting for a while because the draught of 16.1m is critical in a number of places in the Western Scheldt. Often the channel is 40-50m deep, but there are a number of ‘thresholds’ where the depth is only about 16m. High tide and steering skills brought the ship into a safe harbour. We have now reached the point where pride and shame compete for priority over so much welfare transport. The regional PZC was talking about a thief in the night when it reported on the passage of MSC Loreto. It is claimed that such a ship is just as polluting as 50 million cars on an annual basis. I did some calculations. The 80-kilometre-long Westerscheldt passage is about 0.5% of the length of the SE Asia – Western Europe trip. On an annual basis, MSC Loreto and its buddies pollute the equivalent of 250,000 cars on this route. Let this be exactly the total number of motor vehicles in the province of Zeeland! The Western Scheldt, like almost all waters in Zeeland, is a Natura 2000 area. Vulnerable nature that imposes restrictions on developments on land. As is well known, shipping, like aviation, does not appear as a major polluter in the lists. They simply don’t count. With that, as if it were a party game, we beat around the bush. Whether it’s about an excess of consumption, about the semantics around the problem definition, or about the choice of stopgap measures to tackle problems. In fact, we just do something. For those, like me, who want to work on future-proof regions, and especially for all those who have to move along with this, and ultimately for everyone who wants to live comfortably in this country, it is important not to marginally turn the knobs, but to find a way to recalibrate our values. I thought, I’ll just throw it in, in this holiday time ,-)
If we have the foundations back in order, then we can make the big choices for the future together.
Henk Hartzema, LinkedIn, 29 July 2023. Image: Omroep Zeeland