Earlier this week Europe Editor-in-Chief Helen Kelly spoke with Dr Karen Purnell, managing director of ITOPF - A not for profit scientific organisation based in London.

ITOPF has been providing technical advice on the clean-up of oil spills at sea for 50 years.

It has worked with industry to bring major tanker accidents down from one every two weeks in the 1970s to one or two per year today.

Dr Purnell talked about how ITOPF is evolving to include other types of pollution at sea, and why flag states should file accident investigation reports much more quickly.