Port of LA Says Diesel Soot Fell Far Faster Than Greenhouse Gases

Since 2005 the port says it cut diesel particulate matter 90% while greenhouse gases fell 16%, even as cargo grew 37%.

The trucks that haul containers out of the Port of Los Angeles put out a quarter less smog-forming nitrogen oxides last year than the year before, the port says. Their diesel soot fell 16%, according to figures Container News reported.

Those truck numbers are the sharpest in the port's annual Inventory of Air Emissions, released Oct. 22. Divided by the boxes it moved, nearly 10.2 million twenty-foot container units, 2025 was the cleanest year the port has ever measured, by its own account. Every major pollutant it tracks dropped from 2024, Random Lengths News reported Monday.

Stretch the view back to 2005 and the picture splits. Over those two decades the port moved 37% more containers and, it says, cut diesel particulate matter 90% and sulfur oxides 98%. Greenhouse gases over the same stretch are down 16%, and down 3% from 2024.

The cuts came from engines and fuel. Ships burned cleaner fuel and plugged into shore power more often, and 34% fewer of them called than in 2005. Back then not one of the harbor's tugs, barges, ferries or workboats met the Tier 3 or Tier 4 emissions standards; today 55% do, Container News reported.

None of this counting is new. The port's air emissions page lists an inventory for every year back to 2005, plus a 2001 baseline. The estimates are built with a technical working group that includes the Port of Long Beach, the EPA's regional office, the California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

In 2017 the two San Pedro Bay ports updated their Clean Air Action Plan to speed the shift to zero-emission operations. Nitrogen oxides are down 38% since then, and last year's total was the lowest since the port started counting.

The machines that lift and stack the boxes tell the slower story. The port's electric cargo-handling units grew 20% in a year, Container News reported, yet zero-emission machines still make up 14% of all its cargo-handling equipment.

Executive Director Gene Seroka credited years of investment and work across the industry, and said the results show heavy cargo and falling emissions can go together, Container News reported. Harbor Commission President Beatrice Hsu called the numbers a reminder of 20 years of progress under the plan and recommitted the port to its zero-emissions goal. On the docks, that goal stands at 14 machines out of every 100.

Source: randomlengthsnews.com, retrieved October 27, 2026. Other sources: container-news.com, portoflosangeles.org.