“The vote in the Environment
Committee will hopefully call a halt to EU ships being carelessly scrapped on
the beaches in developing countries. Now it is up to the EU Council of
Ministers to support both the industry-financed recycling fund and the
mandatory inventory of hazardous materials in the upcoming negotiations,” says
Paal Frisvold, Chairman of Bellona Europa, the initiator and founding member of
the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
Bellona, 02/04-2013
The European Parliament’s Environment
Committee voted on Tuesday 26 March on a report on ship recycling regulation.
The MEPs proposed a ship recycling fund - a scheme to be financed by a
recycling levy, in line with the polluter pays principle. The owners of EU
ships would also face penalties if they sold their fleet for scrapping on a
beach in developing countries, as is often the case now.
Every year, around 800 ocean ships are
dismantled to recover steel. However, only a tiny proportion of out-of-service
ships are handled in a safe manner. More than 80% of all ships are being broken
down manually on the beaches in developing countries such as Bangladesh, India
and Pakistan. The shipbreaking companies take advantage of the lack of or
minimal enforcement of environmental and safety rules to make the most of
profits while shipbreaking workers suffer from occupational diseases caused by
toxic materials.
EU-wide recycling fund
The draft regulation, proposed by the
Commission in March 2012, aims to reduce the negative effects of careless
scrapping, such as accidents, injuries or damage to human health and the
environment. It ensures that EU ships, and non-EU ships that use the European
ports, are scrapped in EU-approved facilities worldwide. An EU-wide fund would
make scrapping ships by EU-approved services competitive.
The idea, introduced by the Rapporteur Carl
Schlyter, a Swedish MEP from the Greens-EFA group, is to have all ships calling
at EU ports contribute into the fund. The fund will pay out premiums for safe
ship recycling in EU-approved facilities. This will remove the price gap in
comparison to the facilities located on beaches in South-Asian countries where
owners of the ships benefit from the highest prices.
Hazardous material inventory
According to the report the EU ship-owners
would be obliged to draw up an inventory of hazardous materials on board of
their ships. Non-EU ships entering a port of a member state would also have to
have a hazardous materials inventory on board. In case of non-compliance with
the inventory, penalties could be imposed. Penalties would also be imposed on
owners of EU ships that are sold and sent for recycling on a beach or in a
facility not on the EU list.
Next steps
The European Parliament will vote at a
forthcoming plenary session in April on a mandate for negotiations with EU
ministers. The Working Party on the Environment of the Council started its
examination of proposal in April last year. The Irish Presidency produced the
compromise text in March this year which will now be discussed with the
Parliament.
Source: Bellona.
3 April 2013
http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2013/1364918259.13
No comments:
Post a Comment