South Asia Still Preferred Dumping Ground

Out of a total of 1026 ships dismantled globally in 2014, 641, representing 74% of the total gross tonnage (GT) scrapped, were sold to substandard facilities in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where ships are dismantled directly on tidal beaches, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform’s demolition stats show.

None of the said South Asian yards comply with international standards for safe and environmentally sound ship recycling.

“The demolition of the largest movable man-made structures is hazardous and must be conducted in a controlled manner using adequate infrastructure such as cranes as well as necessary health and safety provisions,” the Platform said.

In 2014 the Platform reported 23 deaths and 66 severe injuries due to accidents such as explosions, workers crushed under steel plates and falling from heights on the South Asian beaches.

“South Asia is still the preferred dumping ground for most ship owners as environmental, safety and labour rights standards are poorly enforced there,” said Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.

“Ship owners sell their ships to the beaching yards for considerably greater profit than the price they could obtain by cooperating with modern ship recycling facilities. It is shameful for the shipping industry that so many ship owners choose to close their eyes to the realities on-the-ground in South Asia and do not to face up to their responsibility and demand clean, safe and just ship recycling.”

According to the NGO, German ship owner Ernst Komrowski tops the list of the worst global dumpers with 14 end-of-life vessels sold to the beaches; all formerly part of the Maersk fleet.

Second ranks South Korea’s largest container ship owner Hanjin Shipping with 11 ships, followed by Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the second largest container ship operator in the world.

The Platform said that MSC’s shipbreaking activities in India have already cost the life of six workers in 2009 when a fire broke out on the MSC Jessica.

“Despite recurrent public criticism of MSC’s deplorable management of their end-of-life fleet, MSC has not developed a ship recycling policy that can prevent such tragic accidents. Hanjin and MSC’s bad practice stands in sharp contrast to that of their competitors Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, two leading containership companies that have committed themselves to the recycling of their end-of-life vessels in modern facilities off the beach,” the Platform pointed out.

According to the statistics, number four amongst the worst dumpers is Petrobras with six end-of-life vessels sold to South Asia.

Komrowski, Hanjin, MSC and Petrobras are followed by companies such as as Conti, one of the largest German ship owners offering private investment in ships, G-Bulk and Danaos from Greece and Ignazio Messina from Italy. Also American TBS International, Singapore-based Pacific International and Taiwanese owner Yang Ming each sold five ships to the beaches in South Asia, the Platform added.

“Every single ship owner can do something: instead of selling to intermediaries and losing leverage on the fate of their vessel, ship owners can talk to ship recycling experts and negotiate directly with modern ship recycling facilities. Teekay and Hapag-Lloyd’s decision last year to adopt responsible ship recycling policies shows that ship owners can make alternative choices,” Heidegger went on to say.

The Platform said that the European Union has a particular responsibility to act as 34% of the gross tonnage broken in South Asia last year was European.

Amongst the ships dismantled in 2014, 285 were either owned by a European company or flying the flag of an EU Member State. Two thirds of these European ships ,182 ships, including many having primarily operated in European waters, were beached, according to the statistics.

“Comparatively, Chinese owners, including those based in Hong Kong, only sold 39% of their end-of-life vessels to beaching facilities in South Asia. China is the only major shipping nation in the world building up domestic capacity and working towards self-sufficiency in the management of its end-of-life fleet,” the Platform concluded.

Images: NGO Shipbreaking Platform