On Friday, the
European Community Shipowner Association entered the public debate on ship
recycling standards with a statement in favor of allowing EU-flagged vessels to
be demolished at certified beaching yards in South Asia.
The European
Commission has implemented a ship recycling regulation which permits beaching
in theory, but bans the felling of cut hull sections onto the beach – a
practice that is required for some parts of process, even for upgraded yards,
says Maersk's director of group sustainability, Annette Stube. She describes
the strict EU ban on traditional gravity felling as a failure to distinguish
between toxic and non-toxic materials, as (she asserts) dropping pre-cleaned
hull sections on a tidal flat is not an activity that needs to be regulated
with the same level of stringency applied to the disposal of toxic wastes. ECSA
Secretary General Patrick Verhoeven echoed her sentiments in his statement:
"The guidelines on which recyling yards have to base their application do
not differentiate between hazardous and non-hazardous waste which de facto
excludes all yards in India, even the most advanced ones," he said.
"We believe that this is disproportionate and will simply discourage yards
from making further investments to raise standards."
Ship recycling
advocates in the EU and in India have generally opposed beaching on
environmental and labor rights grounds, like the dispersal of paint and slag
into the intertidal zone and allegedly poor accommodations standards for
workers.
This week, the
Clean Shipping Coalition asserted that Maersk will reflag its obsolete vessels,
removing them from the scope of the regulation and allowing the use of beaching
yards – an eventuality that advocates and government authorities long
anticipated. John Maggs, senior policy advisor at Seas At Risk and president of
the Coalition, expressed firm opposition to the prospect. “Maersk is a European
company and should abide by European laws. Suggesting that it might use a flag
of convenience to escape EU ship breaking rules designed to protect the environment
and worker safety is scandalous, and will seriously undermine its credibility
as a responsible ship
owner and operator,” he said.
Sotiris Raptis,
shipping officer at Transport & Environment, added that “while Maersk
supports innovation in reducing air polluting emissions, this move shows a
cavalier attitude towards the environmental impacts of dismantling ships in the
intertidal zone . . . Maersk needs to reverse course on practices that it
previously denounced and that would never be allowed in Europe." (As
Raptiris suggests, Maersk used to share NGOs' views on ship recycling: in 2013,
Maersk Line’s head of sustainability Jacob Sterling – now global head of
product management – wrote that the firm agreed with the call to end beaching,
citing poor workplace safety statistics.)
ECSA countered
Maggs and Raptiris' claims, saying that it supports shipowners' decisions to
engage with select Alang yards. It described Maersk's choice as a way to drive
much-needed change in the largest sector of the ship recycling industry (South
Asian yards handle 70 percent of the world's obsolete vessels). “This is not a
matter of lowering standards, but rather to the contrary a way of rewarding
those recycling facilities that have now raised their standards to match those
of leading shipowners”, said Patrick Verhoeven. “By committing tonnage to
responsible facilities in Alang, these shipowners also commit staff and
resources to monitor and share best practices, effectively shaping the future
of the region.”
Source: maritime-executive.
10 June 2016
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