Ben Messenger Managing Editor Waste Management World 7 Mar 14;
NGO, Shipbreaking Platform, has called on Singapore-based ship owners to stop selling their end-of-life s to beach-breaking yards in developing countries, but rather demand clean and safe ship recycling, at the recent TradeWinds Ship Recycling Forum in Singapore.
According to Shipbreaking Platform - a global coalition of 19 environmental, human rights and labour rights organisations working to prevent dangerous and polluting shipbreaking worldwide - many of the end-of-life ships that end up being broken on beaches are filled with hazardous waste.
“It is now time for South East Asian ship owners to join the front-runners of the maritime industry mainly based in Europe and say no to a practice that is harming the environment and people,” Patrizia Heidegger, executive director of Shipbreaking Platform told the Forum.
“There are various opportunities to choose clean and safe ship recycling, and it’s time for responsible South East Asian ship owners to seize these,” she continued.
According to the NGO, shipbreaking as practiced today on the beaches in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan is a cause for pollution of the coastal ecosystems next to the yards. This also includes erosion and an increased risk of floods when the coastal green belt of mangrove trees is cut down in Bangladesh.
Further to the environmental damage, Shipbreaking Platform said that workers are exposed to dangerous waste in the yards and downstream scrap yards, and the industry also effects surrounding communities, including fishermen who have lost their livelihoods.
In a list published in February this year, the Platform claimed that out of 39 Singapore owned ships sent for dismantling last year, almost all were sent to the South Asian beach-breaking yards: 17 ships were sent to India, 9 to Bangladesh and 5 to Pakistan.
By selling ships to such yards, the NGO said that Singapore shipping companies are effectively encouraging substandard shipbreaking that continue to harm the local environment and communities.
“Singapore as an industrialised state and a major shipping hub must make sure it does not externalise costs for hazardous waste management to developing countries when scrapping its ships”, commented Jim Puckett, executive director of the U.S. based Basel Action Network (BAN).
“What is more, ship owners need to develop ship recycling policies that take into account the real costs for responsible recycling,” he added.
Ritwick Dutta, environmental lawyer from India, also spoke in the conference:
“Shipbreaking yards in South Asia do not operate according to international environmental standards. Ship owners should make sure their end-of-life ships are recycled in accordance with those standards,” she said.
“Ship owners should not just rely on certificates presented to them, but must verify under which conditions their old ships are really demolished,” continued Dutta.
Leading the way
According to Shipbreaking Platform the European Union has effectively disqualified beaching for EU-flagged ships by issuing a new EU Ship Recycling Regulation in December 2013.
The regulation requires recycling facilities to operate from ‘built structures’ and asks for full containment of all pollutants, leakage control and impermeable floors.
The Platform noted that European ship owners that have chosen an anti-beaching position including Dutch ship owner Boskalis, as well as Norwegian companies Grieg Shipping, Wilhelmsen and Höegh Autoliners.
The NGO added that in North America, Canadian Steamship Lines (CSL) has also that it will no longer beach any of its ships, and international oil and gas companies are chosing cleaner and safer recycling for their tankers.
The 2013 lists are available here: http://bit.ly/LHuOTn
'Safety risk' in breaking up of Singapore-origin ships
Radha Basu The Straits Times AsiaOne 8 Mar 14;
An international coalition of non-governmental organisations raised the flag here on Wednesday about Singapore-origin ships being dismantled at the end of their lives on South Asian beaches, using methods that they say endanger the health and safety of workers and harm the environment.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform, comprising 20 environmental and human rights groups from 10 countries, won a hard-fought battle when the European Commission (EC) enforced a new law on Dec 30 last year requiring ships bearing the flags of its member nations to be dismantled only in shipyards approved by the European Union.
These are recycling facilities that practise safe and environmentally sound methods of dismantling ships. Vessels that bear European flags will not be able to use "substandard sites as is currently the practice", the EC said, while passing the regulation.
With the new rule minimising the threat of toxins being dumped in South Asia by European-flagged companies, the coalition now wants to train its sights on Asia, its executive director Patrizia Heidegger told The Straits Times on Wednesday on the sidelines of a conference on ship recycling.
"We want ship owners here to dispose of the hazardous waste on their ships in a responsible way, rather than make use of cheap but dangerous practices which would never be allowed in Singapore or in the rest of the developed world," she said.
Once they reach the end of their lives, commercial Singapore-origin ships are usually sold to "cash buyers" who then send them to be broken on the tidal beaches of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, largely by unskilled workers.
"The ships contain toxins such as asbestos and lead and little care is given to worker safety or protection of the environment," said Ms Heidegger.
The coalition says it has received reports on around 25 deaths in ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh alone over the past year.
In the latest incident reported last month, a worker was killed by a falling steel plate while dismantling a ship owned by a Singapore company.
Toxins are a major worry. Statistics on Asian-flagged ships are hard to come by, but the European Commission estimates that at least 40,000 tonnes of toxins (including 3,000 tonnes of asbestos) on board end-of-life vessels are exported each year to South Asia from the EU alone.
Barring EU, the top countries from where ships are sent to hazardous ship-breaking beaches are India, China and Singapore, charged Ms Heidegger.
Glory Ship Management, Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) and Raffles Shipping were the top three Singapore companies sending ships to South Asian yards.
"They could use cleaner and safer facilities elsewhere but they don't," said Ms Heidegger.
A spokesman for Neptune Orient Lines said that for end-of-life vessels, NOL has a policy of working with buyers who hold ISO certifications for safe handling and disposal of hazardous materials.
"These buyers have a track record of working with major carriers, and have demonstrated best practices in ship demolition," she said.
Glory Ship Management and Raffles Shipping did not respond by press time.
Meanwhile, Wirana Shipping Corporation, a leading Singapore-based cash buyer of ships, said shipyards it sends its ships to in the sub-continent had cleaned up their act considerably in recent years.
Workers, for instance, now have protective safety gear, better living conditions and medical facilities, and toxins are handled according to national guidelines, said the company's chief executive Rakesh Khetan.
"The shipyards are mindful that they need to upgrade to meet EU standards," he said. "There have already been many improvements and more will follow."
