The NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a global coalition of environmental and human rights organisations seeking to prevent dirty and dangerous shipbreaking worldwide, has released a complete list of all ship owners and their ships sold for breaking last year.
Out of a total of 1026 ships dismantled globally in 2014, 641 (74 per cent 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. None of the South Asian yards comply with international standards for safe and environmentally sound ship recycling.
End-of-life ships contain toxic materials such as asbestos and heavy metals. These pollutants cannot be contained or safely removed on a tidal beach. In 2014 the Platform reported 23 deaths and 66 severe injuries due to accidents.
Worst Global Ship Dumpers
German ship owner Ernst Komrowski tops the list of the worst global dumpers with fourteen end-of-life vessels sold to the beaches. All of these were formerly part of the Maersk fleet and had been on a long-term charter with the Danish container ship giant, which oppositely to Komrowski has a strict ship recycling policy for its own vessels, just as Hapag-Lloyd has.
Second ranks South Korea’s largest container ship owner Hanjin Shipping with eleven ships. Third ranks Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the second largest container ship operator in the world . Number four is Petrobras with six end-of-life vessels sold to South Asia.
What follows is a range of companies which have all sold five end-of-life vessels to the beaches, amongst them Conti from Germany, G-Bulk and Danaos from Greece, Ignazio Messina from Italy, American TBS International, Singapore-based Pacific International and Taiwanese owner Yang Ming.
285 European ships
Amongst the ships dismantled in 2014, 285 were either owned by a European company or flying the flag of an EU Member State. 182 ships of these were beached. Greece and Germany top the list of 2014 worst dumping countries, selling respectively 70 and 41 large oceangoing vessels to South Asian breakers. They also top the list of ship-owning countries which sell almost exclusively to South Asian breakers, rather than to modern recyclers.
Domestic Scrapping Capacity
Cyprus owners sold a record high 92% of their old ships to substandard yards in South Asia, German owners as much as 87% and Greek owners 76%. 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.
EU Ship Recycling Regulation
Despite the new EU Ship Recycling Regulation, which entered into force on 30 December 2013 and which out-rules the use of the beaching method to dismantle EU-flagged vessels, 41 were still beached in 2014. Fifteen additional ships changed their flag from an EU to a non-EU flag just weeks before reaching South Asia. As in previous years, particular flags of convenience such as Saint Kitts and Nevis (64 ships), Comoros (39 ships), Tuvalu (24 ships), Tanzania (20 ships) and Togo (20 ships) that are less favoured during operational use, were excessively popular flags for the end-of-life ships broken in South Asia.
The Platform calls for an economic incentive to persuade ship owners to follow the EU’s Ship Recycling Regulation.
NGO Shipbreaking Platform
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform advises ship owners on what they can do to ensure sustainable end-of-life policies for their fleet. Currently, it counts thirteen major ship owners which practice clean and safe ship recycling in modern facilities off the beach.
Picture by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
