Global Marketing Systems, Inc (GMS), the world’s
largest cash buyer of ships for recycling, has challenged the European
Commission’s intention to ban ship recycling by beaching, by inviting the
Commission and a major representative group of top level shipping industry
stakeholders to India to witness the recycling process first hand at one of the
country’s best yards.
Addressing a high-level industry conference in
London, Dr Nikos Mikelis, non-executive Director of GMS, said ship recycling
yards were improving in South East Asia and the best way to see this was to
visit the yards in person.
GMS also used the conference to call on Panama and
the Marshall Islands to accede to the Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and
Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships in order to satisfy calls by the
International Chamber of Shipping and the European Community Shipowners’
Associations (ECSA) for a level playing field in global recycling. Ratification
by these two large flags would speed up entry into force of the Convention.
GMS said it would be willing to invite officials from
EU Member States; experts on hazardous materials; representatives of ship
owners or ship owner associations; the IMO Secretariat and the European
Commission to see the improvements that have taken place in Indian recycling
yards.
The observers would then be requested to compile a
report of their findings.
Dr Mikelis said that while progress was being made in
Indian yards, it could “come to an abrupt end through the ill-advised efforts
to ban ship recycling by beaching through the Unit of Waste Management of the
European Commission’s Directorate-General for the Environment.
“We can only hope that the administrations of
right-thinking European States will avert the tragic mistake that has been brewing
in Brussels through the regulator’s lack of understanding on international
shipping and ship recycling.”
He added: “Progress could also slowly come to a halt
if yard owners who are investing in improvements do not realize any financial
gain through the custom of responsible ship owners seeking safe and clean
recycling in the period prior to the entry into force of international
requirements. As entry into force of the Hong Kong Convention is practically
subject to accession by India, we have a classic ‘chicken and egg’ situation if
there is no financial motivation to the yards.”
Dr Mikelis said the CSR policy of a responsible ship
owner who cares that ship recycling standards are sustainable across the
industry and not only within his company “must encourage, through his custom,
yards which have invested in safety and environmental protection, regardless of
whether these yards are located in South Asia or elsewhere”.
Source: the
maritime executive. 5 November 2014
1 comment:
If there are such improvements in India, why do you post a picture from a yard in Denmark??
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