(BRUSSELS) – The beautiful sunset light does not really manage to lighten
the cruel reality of the images: huge ships being dismantled manually by scores
of workers in appalling conditions. “With producer Paul Goodman, we originally
wanted to make a film on the process of shipbreaking only,” Ralph Vituccio and
Tom Clancey, the two American filmmakers of a documentary about shipbreaking in
India explain. “But we soon realized that we could not ignore the human rights
and the environmental issues.
“Working conditions are dreadful; there are absolutely no safety
precautions,” Vituccio goes on to say. “Workers wear sandals and the beach is
full of metal scrap and sharp-edged cutting objects. Many of them don’t even
wear a helmet. They rip asbestos by hand. Odors and smoke can be awful.
Accidents happen regularly. They live in horrendous conditions, in shanty town
made with ship material, they have no running water. Some of these workers are
as young as 14.”
The film “Shipbreakers” is not due before 2013, but the teaser shown in
the European Parliament in Brussels last week was enough to realize
shipbreaking can have all the ingredients of hell on Earth.
According to the NGO Shipbreaking Platform — a coalition of 18 human
rights, labor rights and environmental organizations — every year about 1,000
ships are sent for breaking so that their steel and some of their contents can
be recycled. The problem is that most of these ships contain hazardous
materials such as asbestos, mineral oils, PCBs and heavy metals, among others.
And only a fraction is handled in a safe, sustainable manner. More often, these
ships are simply run ashore on tidal beaches in developing countries, such as
Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, where the lack of environmental protection and safety
measures leads to high accident rates, health risks and extensive pollution of
coastal areas.
The shipbreaking industry
In 2011, more than 200 European ships were sent for breaking on the
beaches of South Asia. And the situation is likely to worsen since large
numbers of ships are expected to be sent for dismantling in the coming years as
a result of the current overcapacity of the world fleet on the one hand; and
because of the phasing-out of single-hull tankers, due by 2015, on the other.
Yet, sending European ships for dismantling to South-East Asia is
illegal. In the late 1980s, there was international indignation after reports
of 8,000 barrels of chemical waste being dumped on Koko Beach in Nigeria hit
the headlines. There were demands for stricter international rules to regulate
the export of toxic waste from industrialized to developing countries. As a
result, in 1989, the United Nations Basel Convention on the control of
Transboundary Movements of Waste and their disposal was adopted.
The Basel Convention provides for a worldwide system of prior written
notice and approval for the movement of wastes. In 1995, an amendment was
adopted banning the export of hazardous waste from the EU and OECD developed
countries to non–OECD countries. The ban was subsequently implemented into
European law with the Waste Shipment Regulation that includes end-of-life
ships, considered as waste. Since then, it has been illegal for any ship to
leave an EU port for a shipbreaking destination located in non-OECD countries.
The European Union is faced with two problems though: First, there is,
according to the European Commission, a lack of recycling capacities available
in OECD countries, particularly for the largest ships. Second, the export ban
is too easily circumvented by ship-owners because it is difficult to identify
the moment in which a ship becomes waste. And if the ship-owner does not
declare the intention to dismantle a ship when leaving an EU port, the relevant
authorities cannot intervene. According to figures from the European
Commission, in 2009, more than 90 percent of EU-flagged ships were dismantled
outside the OECD, mostly in South Asia. In other words, the export ban is as
good as hollow.
The Hong Kong Convention
Realizing the problem, the International Maritime Organization (IMO)
adopted the Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally sound
Recycling of Ships in 2006. This would allow dismantling everywhere, including
in Asian countries, provided the yards are certified to meet international
standards. To enter into force, the Hong Kong Convention must be ratified by a
sufficient number of states. This is not expected to happen before 2020 at the
earliest.
The European Commission has just tabled a draft law whose purpose is to
allow an early implementation of the requirements of the Hong Kong Convention
for EU-countries. As a result of this new regulation and in order to avoid
overlapping, ships would no longer be covered by the older Waste Shipment
Regulation, i.e., the Basel Convention.
This has led to a general outcry from the NGOs. They claim that the Hong
Kong Convention is far too lax and fails to meet the high requirements of the
Basel Convention. The beaching practice, for example, is not explicitly
prohibited. There are discussions about how the certification process will
function: Who is going to attest that yards in South Asia comply with
international human rights and environmental rules? They also argue that if a
particular set of laws and regulations is being regularly flouted, the most
obvious solution is to pay more attention to an improved enforcement mechanism,
not to replace it by a new set of rules that is weaker.
“You cannot leave to developing countries the responsibility to set up
proper yards and the Europeans just wash their hands,” says Ludwig Kramer, an
environment lawyer for ClientEarth. “The fact is, end-of-life ships are
hazardous waste; this is covered by the Basel Convention which prohibits its
export, and the EU has ratified that convention. That’s it. The EU cannot
decide unilaterally that the Basel Convention is no longer valid for ships.
This is illegal under international law.”
The Basel Action Network, an American member of the Shipbreaking
Platform, refutes the EU’s claim that there is insufficient ship recycling
capacity in developed countries. They say they have identified clean and safe
ship underutilized recycling capacity in North America, and that is sufficient
to accommodate the current EU-flagged tonnage excess. According to Nikos
Mikelis, from the IMO, this is a false claim though, because the conditions for
importing ships in the United States are very strict, and the charges are such
that it is not realistic to expect ship-owners to pay for them.
This at least has the merit of clarity and exposes two fundamental
questions: Who is willing to deal with dangerous
waste? And who is willing to bear the costs? The industry has clearly
concluded that developing countries were the best deal, regardless of human
rights and environmental considerations. And governments find it difficult to
put an end to the practice, either because regulations are being circumvented
or because they bend to the pressure from the industry. Some argue that
developing countries actually benefit from the ship dismantling since they recover
valuable steel.
Backlash from developing countries
But Rizwana Hasan, from the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyer’s
Association, would not take it. “Well, I would rather they keep their steel and
we save our workers’ lives!” she intervenes. “Why would poor countries bear all
the costs of the recycling? Why would industrialized countries dump their waste
in developing countries?” She also denounces the EU’s lack of consistency.
“European countries have banned beaching in Europe but they would not do it on
a global level.” She believes the new EU proposal will certainly not improve
things on the ground.
There is another major problem: Out of all ships sent for breaking every
year, 40 percent are owned by European companies but only 8 percent are actually
flagged in the EU. More or less two years before breaking, ships typically
change registration. As a result, most end-of-life ships enter Bangladesh with
a flag from Panama, West Indies, the British Virgin Islands or the like and
there is nothing the EU can do about it. In other words, and whatever the
regulation, it will be meaningless if in the end, it leads to EU-ships being
flagged out.
Carl Schlyter, in charge of the new draft law in the European Parliament
and member of the Swedish Green Party, has an idea that, he believes, will
counter that problem. He wants to make all ships that call at a European port
pay a fee according to their tonnage. They would only get their money back if
they can prove in the end that the dismantling of the ship has been done in a
proper way.
“On the substance,” he says, “the NGOs are right of course, we need good
and strict rules. But if they are not implemented, what is the benefit?” Does
that mean he is prepared to be pragmatic, preferring a less than good solution
to no solution at all? “Pragmatic? I hate that word,” the answer comes.
“But what can I do?” he goes on. “If we are too demanding, the new
legislation won’t be approved and the situation is not going to improve on the
ground. So, I’d rather table a few amendments, ask for an explicit ban on
beaching for example and introduce the idea of a fund. I am not even sure I can
win that battle!”
Schlyter knows pretty well that many of his colleagues in the European
Parliament are sensitive to the needs of the industry; he also knows the draft
law will have to be approved by the EU Council, where important shipping states
such as Greece, Malta, Cyprus and others are likely to oppose his efforts to
strengthen the text.
And in the meantime, the sun will continue to rise and set over inhuman
shipbreaking yards somewhere in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Source: mint press. By Magda Fahsi. 12 November 2012
http://www.mintpress.net/accidents-and-asbestos-concerns-plaguing-the-shipbreaking-industry-in-developing-countries/
