The
Asian Shipowners' Association has called for the ratification of the Hong Kong
Convention, and is in talks with the International Chamber of Shipping and the
European Community Shipowners' Associations, or ECSA, on the EU's proposal to
potentially introduce a levy on all ships entering EU ports to incentivize
shipowners to recycle their ships in an environmentally friendly way.
"Our
view is that we need only one international policy, and the Hong Kong
International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of
Ships is backed by the International Maritime Organization," secretary
general of National Association of Chinese Shipowners Bob Hsu told S&P Global
Platts Monday.
It
was one of the issues raised during ASA's annual general meeting held in
Shanghai, China on May 20.
ASA
called on its members -- which include NACS -- to encourage their own
governments to ratify the Hong Kong Convention "at the earliest
opportunity."
The
Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound
Recycling of Ships, or HKC, was adopted by IMO at a conference in Hong Kong in
May 2009, but only a handful of the 15 ship-owning and ship scrapping nations
representing 40% of the world's gross tonnage have ratified it.
HKC
is aimed at ensuring that ships, when being recycled after reaching the end of
their operational lives, do not pose any unnecessary risk to human health and
safety or to the environment.
The
EU Ship Recycling Regulation, however, incorporates the provisions of HKC and
establishes an EU-approved list of recycling facilities where EU-flagged
vessels will have to be scrapped.
Ship
recycling yards worldwide can apply to be included on this list.
However,
the guidelines in practice make it extremely challenging for these yards to be
recognized under EU Regulation, said ASA and ECSA.
For
one, these yards need to ensure safe working conditions, pollution control
including proper downstream waste management and the enforcement of
international labor rights, said environmental groups.
"Workers
still do not have access to free drinking water and toilets, and there is no
hospital, nor ambulance available for the estimated 20,000 workers," said
Indian nongovernmental organization Paryavaran Mitra, in describing the working
conditions of ship recycling workers in Alang town, India.
"Alang
yards use the beaching method where pollution control is made impossible by the
tide and safe working conditions cannot be ensure," it added.
India,
Bangladesh, China and Pakistan are global centers of ship breaking and
recycling, with Alang being the largest in the world.
Brussels-based
NGO Shipbreaking Platform points out that shipowners' associations have found a
convenient solution in advocating the HKC as it does not ban the beaching
method -- where ships are first grounded and then dismantled, posing hazards to
workers and the environment -- and it does not introduce strict rules on
downstream waste management.
"Anyone
can hand out Statements of Compliance [or SOCs] to ship breaking yards claiming
they operate in line with the convention. While some certifiers act with more
diligence, others have started to offer cheaper and quicker
certifications," NGO Shipbreaking Platform's executive director Patrizia
Heidegger said.
Lax
certification could render the standard meaningless as in the case with ISO
30000:2009, for which most yards in India and Bangladesh were quick to produce
certificates, Heidegger added.
ECSA,
for its part, visited eight ship recycling yards in Alang last month and found
that while the implementation of standards differed considerably among the
yards, these yards have "taken the responsible path towards full
compliance with the Hong Kong Convention, both in letter and spirit," said
ECSA's secretary general Patrick Verhoeven.
"We
want to ensure that the other yards are following these first movers so that
the bar can be raised overall," said Verhoeven, adding that adopting an
overly restrictive approach will discourage first movers and further delay the
implementation of the IMO Hong Kong Convention.
Verhoeven
called on these first movers to apply for recognition under the EU Ship
Recycling Regulation, and also urged the European Commission to "assess
these applications in the true spirit of the Regulation and the
Convention."
Representatives
from EU member states, the European Commission (DG Environment) as well as the
International Chamber of Shipping were part of the delegation that visited the
Alang yards in late April.
Source:
platts.com. 30 May 2016
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