Women at the forefront of protecting the environment at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s Counter Pollution and Salvage team is responsible for ensuring shipping ports across the country are following legislation to mitigate pollution.

Jayne Ede is the counter pollution and salvage officer for the west working with a number of ports and harbours from Exeter to Silloth on the Scottish border.

Ports have a responsibility for ensuring any pollution risks are dealt with swiftly and that staff are effectively trained to handle them.

Jayne said: “My role is to liaise, train and exercise the ports to ensure they are suitably prepared to deal with any incidents and that together we are doing all we can to protect the environment.”

“The David Attenborough effect has been huge in recent years and has led to a large number of people having an interest in pollution and wanting to personally do everything possible to look after the environment and to protect it for future generations. Their expectation is for companies to being doing the same.”

“My background is in science, I have a chemistry degree and previously worked as a chemist for the Ministry of Defence before joining the MCA nearly two years ago.”

“In my previous job I really enjoyed the incident response aspects of the role and joining up with other agencies. Therefore when this job came up it was a no brainer and I knew I had to apply.”

“My scientific background helps massively with my role as it means I have an understanding and an interest in how to protect the environment.”

Jayne also takes part in a rota system with the other Counter Pollution and Salvage Officers from the MCA. When on duty Jayne would work with the coastguard operations centres if there has been a pollution incident, a damaged or broken down vessel or other hazards.

Jayne said: “Depending on the scale of the incident we may take on a role of coordinating the response and ensuring the correct people are involved.”