On April 12, the European Commission published new legal guidelines which – advocates suggest – may prevent South Asian beaching shipbreakers from receiving required certification for dismantling EU-flag state vessels.
The implementation
document states that "applying environmentally sound management principles
and compliance with regulations for recycling a ship will rely, at least
partly, on developing appropriate infrastructure. Operationally, it follows . .
. that the transfer of elements from the ship to the facility’s impermeable
floor is done without the elements coming in contact with the sea, the
intertidal zone or any other permeable surface such as sand or gravel."
Yards in the
developing world handle an estimated 70 percent of the world’s obsolete
tonnage; they generally rely on grounding ships onto soft beaches, where the
hulks are dismantled at competitive rates through the use of migrant labor and
basic implements. The operation involves cutting blocks off of the beached
vessels and dropping them by gravity onto the beach, where they are winched up
the shore for further scrapping. Bangladeshi safety advocates BELA suggest that
over 90 workers have died carrying out these practices over the course of the
last seven years; shipbreakers in the country face charges of contempt of court
for failure to improve conditions.
Advocates with NGO
Shipbreaking Platform suggest that the EC’s requirements will restrict
shipbreaking activity to safer and less polluting yards in the developed world.
As a measure of the regulation's stringency, it would disallow EU certification
for some federally-regulated American shipbreaking yards, which presently rely
on the use of permeable tidal beaches and adjacent land.
“Recycling yards
that want to make it on the EU list of approved facilities need to meet high
environmental and safety standards. The EC is clear in its message: an
unprotected beach is never going to be an appropriate place for a high-risk
heavy industry involving hazardous waste management”, said Ingvild Jenssen,
Policy Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
However, the
guidelines on facilities contain a caveat that could permit certification for
yards with limited capital improvements. The hull of the scrapped ship itself
can be considered an "impermeable floor," so long as its integrity is
sound, pollution from dismantlement is controlled, and cut blocks are lifted
clear to a separate impermeable area for scrapping. A drydock is not required
to meet the minimum infrastructure standards for certification. After cutting
upper blocks free, the bottom of the hull would also have to be winched clear
onto an impermeable, well-drained surface in order to complete the
dismantlement process.
In February, Maersk
announced a partnership with four beaching yards in Alang, India, intended to
win EU and Hong Kong Convention certification for their operations. Maersk
Group did not immediately return a request for comment.
Source: maritime-executive.
13 April 2016
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