NGOS APPLAUD BELGIUM FOR PREVENTING AN ILLEGAL EXPORT OF THE
SHIP TO INDIA AND CALL ON THE JAPANESE OWNERS TO ADOPT A SUSTAINABLE SHIP
RECYCLING POLICY
Brussels,
6 June 2014 - After having been alerted by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a
coalition of environmental, human rights and labour organisations, the Flemish
Environment Ministry has seized the end-of-life car carrier Global Spirit. The
vessel is not allowed to leave the port of Antwerp before the Japanese owners
provide evidence that the vessel will be dismantled in accordance with European
waste law.
“We
applaud Belgium for having stopped the Japanese ship from sailing to Alang,
India, where the vessel would have been broken under very hazardous conditions,
an export which would have been illegal under European law,” said Ingvild
Jenssen, Policy Advisor of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking. “On the shipbreaking beaches of Alang labour
rights are poorly respected and pollution laws are weak or not-enforced - the
conditions we see in India would never be allowed in Europe or in Japan.”
The
Platform alerted the Belgian authorities earlier this week [1] after it had
been reported that the Global Spirit was sold to the infamous shipbreaking
beaches in India, where at least six workers have died so far this year crushed
by steel plates and many more have been taken ill by occupational disease due
to ship-borne hazardous substances like asbestos and PCBs. According to the
European Union Waste Shipment Regulation, only if all hazardous materials, such
as asbestos, residue oils and toxic
paints, are removed from the Global Spirit can it be allowed to be exported to
South Asia. The Regulation was designed to prevent the environmental injustice
of rich countries exporting their toxic wastes to impoverished countries that
lack the technology and infrastructure to manage such wastes.
The
end-of-life vehicle carrier Global Spirit has been used to transport cars for
Nissan-Renault on a regular route Morocco-EU-Turkey under a long term time
charter with Hoegh Autoliners, managed by Autotrans based in France. The owners
of the Global Spirit have already communicated to the NGO Shipbreaking Platform
that they are currently looking for an alternative breaking destination for the
ship.
“We
now call on the Japanese owners of the ship, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Limited (MOL)
and Nissan Car Carriers (NCC), to find a sustainable solution for their entire
fleet – not only the Global Spirit for which they have been caught red-handed –
and adopt a company policy on ship recycling that will ensure the safe and
green recycling of all their ships off the beach” said Ingvild Jenssen.
Last
year the Japanese ship owner MOL sold six end-of-life ships to South Asian
shipbreakers [2], prioritising the highest price for the ships and ignoring the
harm done to workers, local communities and the environment [3]. The charterers
of the Global Spirit, Hoegh Autoliners, who are also 20 percent shareholders in
NCC, have already adopted a sustainable ship recycling policy for their ships
requiring them to be broken ‘off the beach’. More and more progressive ship
owners are refusing to sell their end-of-life ships to substandard beach
breaking yards and the new EU Ship Recycling Regulation has set a clear
standard for safer and greener practices that effectively rules out the
beaching practice.
CONTACT:
Ingvild
Jenssen
+32
(0)2 6094 420
Source: shipbreaking
platform. 6 June 2014
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