eThekwini Municipality’s Health Unit has been given the go ahead by the Community and Emergency Services Committee to work in collaboration with the Netherlands and Transnet on an air quality project.

The collaborative effort will focus on a regulatory approach to air quality surveillance and monitoring for odour problems in the Port of Durban.

This will specifically look at the petrochemical storage facility known as the Cutler Complex.

The complex occupies a focal point in the transport of and logistics chain and handles over 30 million tons of cargo each year through various petrochemical companies.

The decision was taken at the monthly Community and Emergency Services Committee meeting held at City Hall last week.

Durban’s port is the busiest sea port on the eastern seaboard of Southern Africa with almost 80 percent of the country’s liquid petrochemical requirement imported and exported through the port.

Certain activities in the Cutler Complex have the potential to create varying degrees of impact if proper procedures are not followed, causing wide scale odour problems.

City units will learn best practices from the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands which has the largest petrochemical storage facility in the world.

This collaboration will ensure a sustainable environmental port. The project has no cost implications for the City.