BRUSSELS, Belgium,
June 11, 2016 (ENS) – Indian and international environmental groups are taking
Danish container ship giant Maersk to task for its statement that the company
is considering flagging its end-of-life vessels out of Danish or any other European
registry to circumvent the European Ship Recycling Regulation and break the
ships in India.
Owners of ships
flying the flags of EU Member States must ensure that their ships are recycled
only in ship recycling facilities that comply with strict requirements and are
included on the European List. The European List will be officially published
by the end of 2016.
Maersk says it will
have to scrap more vessels in the coming years due to oversupply and low
freight rates in the container market, and the company estimates it can earn an
additional US$1-2 million per ship by using beaching yards in Alang, India.
After “Maersk
Group’s recent announcement of its long-term commitment to create more
responsible recycling options in Alang, India, an agreement has been reached
for the landing of the first two vessels,” the company announced last month.
Two Maersk Line
container vessels, the Maersk Wyoming and the Maersk Georgia, will be recycled
over the next few months at the Shree Ram yard in Alang, which is certified to
the standards of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and
Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, but is not on the European List.
Until now, the
Maersk Group has recycled its ships in selected yards in China and Turkey.
The Maersk Group’s
policy is to only recycle ships responsibly, the company says.
In his Foreword to
Maersk’s 2015 Sustainability Report, CEO Nils Andersen wrote, “Today, the
majority of ships are dismantled and recycled at facilities on beaches. Here,
the standards and practices often do not adequately protect the people working
at the facilities and the natural environment. We have decided to play a role
in changing this situation. Alone and in partnership with others, we will work
to upgrade conditions at recycling facilities on the beaches in the Alang area,
India, while we remain committed to responsibly recycle our own ships and
rigs.”
Annette Stube, head
of sustainability for the Maersk Group, said, “By initiating recycling of
vessels in Alang at responsible yards, we ensure further development of
financially feasible and responsible recycling options to the benefit of Alang
and the shipping industry. This development will take time, but we are
determined to work with the yards for the long haul,” she said.
“We will also have
staff on-site at Shree Ram. They will be working closely with the yard to
further upgrade practices, processes and facilities to ensure that the
recycling of our vessels complies with our standards,” said Stube.
Stube said
conditions are improving in Alang’s ship recycling yards. Following several
audits at upgraded facilities in Alang last year, the Maersk Group concluded
that responsible recycling can be accelerated in the area, if the company works
with the yards now.
“The Alang plans
come at a cost for us, but we will invest money and human resources to ensure
we can already now scrap our vessels in compliance with the Hong Kong
Convention provisions as well as international standards on labor conditions
and anti-corruption,” said Stube.
But the
environmental groups are not reassured by the company’s statements.
They say that the
European Community Shipowners’ Association, ECSA, and its members have found “a
convenient solution” in referring to the Hong Kong Convention, an International
Maritime Organization Convention that is unlikely to enter into force anytime
soon.
The Hong Kong
Convention was adopted in May 2009, but it will not enter into force until 24
months after the date of ratification by at least 15 states representing a
combined merchant fleet of at least 40 percent of the gross tonnage of the
world’s merchant shipping whose annual ship recycling volume during the
previous 10 years is at least three percent of the gross tonnage of the
combined merchant shipping of the same 15 states.
The IMO says the
Hong Kong Convention is aimed at ensuring that ship recycling “does not pose
any unnecessary risk to human health and safety or to the environment.”
But the NGOs argue
that the Hong Kong Convention does not ban the beaching method, nor does it
introduce strict rules on downstream waste management. Moreover, they warn that
anyone can hand out Statements of Compliance to shipbreaking yards claiming
they operate in line with the convention.
Patrizia Heidegger,
executive director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, said, “Maersk has sent a
clear signal: either European environmental regulation accommodates for its
practices in India, or the world’s largest ship owner will just ignore the Ship
Recycling Regulation by flagging out,” says Patrizia Heidegger, director of
Shipbreaking Platform, a nongovernmental organization.
“The threat to
resort to non-European flags amounts to blackmailing lawmakers who seek to
ensure that European ship owners have to maintain European standards in their
business activities around the world,” said Heidegger.
The Clean Shipping
Coalition, the only global environmental organization that focuses just on
shipping issues, decries pollution caused by shipbreaking on beaches.
The pollution is
caused by the dispersal of debris, including toxic paint chips, into the
intertidal zone; improper downstream disposal of toxic waste; cracked concrete
areas for final demolition; poor accommodations for workers; and an absence of
proper environmental impact assessments and permits.
The Coalition’s
nine members are: the Air Pollution & Climate Secretariat; Bellona
Foundation; Clean Air Task Force; Environmental Defense Fund; Nature and
Biodiversity Conservation Union; Oceana; Seas at Risk; the North Sea
Foundation; and Transport & Environment.
Coalition president
John Maggs said, “Maersk is a European company and should abide by European
laws. Suggesting that it might use a flag of convenience to escape EU
shipbreaking rules designed to protect the environment and worker safety is
scandalous, and will seriously undermine its credibility as a responsible ship
owner and operator.”
Maggs also serves
as a senior policy advisor at Seas At Risk, a marine protection umbrella
organisation of environmental NGOs from across Europe that includes 30 member
groups in 16 countries.
Sotiris Raptis,
shipping officer at Transport & Environment, said, “While Maersk supports
innovation in reducing air polluting emissions, this move shows a cavalier
attitude towards the environmental impacts of dismantling ships in the
intertidal zone. Maersk needs to reverse course on practices that it previously
denounced and that would never be allowed in Europe.”
The Seattle-based
nonprofit Basel Action Network, BAN, has been working against shipbreaking on
beaches for years. The group describes what happens on these South Asian
beaches.
“At high tides each
month, companies sail huge vessels at full speed up onto the shores. When the
tides recede, local workers begin tearing the ships apart, piece by piece.
Without safety gear – in baseball caps and flip flops, or boots if they’re
lucky – boys and young men cut wires, blast through ship hulls with
blowtorches, and haul huge pieces of scrap metal using their bare hands,” says
BAN.
Without basic
occupational health and safety precautions, the number of injuries and deaths
among workers is high. The International Labour Organization considers beach
shipbreaking one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
Local wildlife
suffers too. In Bangladesh alone, 21 species of fish have gone extinct and 11
are endangered due to shipbreaking, BAN has documented.
Indian NGOs most
recently expressed their concern about the beaching of end-of-life vessels in
Alang after an April visit to the Alang shipbreaking yards organized by the
European Community Shipowners’ Association, ECSA.
The European ship
owners invited government representatives from France, Germany, Belgium and the
European Commission on the tour. NGOs, including the NGO Shipbreaking Platform
and its Indian members, were not allowed to join the visit.
The European ship
owners did not make time to meet with the local trade union or the affected
workers.
Ritwick Dutta from
the NGO Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, based in New Delhi, said,
“ECSA should be aware of the fact that environmental groups in India remain
very critical with regards to the state of the shipbreaking industry in Alang.
None of the yards in Alang have to undergo an environmental impact assessment even
when they open new yards or set up new infrastructure.”
“EIAs are required
by the law,” said Dutta, “and they would ensure a transparent process,
including a proper assessment of the environmental impacts of the industry, as
well as allow for civil society and local communities such as fishermen to
express their views.”
“We share the
Gujarat-based NGOs’ concerns and demand that European ship owners do not settle
for double standards,” said Heidegger. “Ship owners should only use facilities
that operate at a level which is accepted in the European Union. We and our
Indian partners believe that the environment, local communities and workers in
India deserve the same level of protection which is reflected in the European
Ship Recycling Regulation.”
To accelerate the
upgrade of more yards in Alang, the Maersk Group said it is building a broader
collaboration with other ship owners to increase demand for responsible ship
recycling and to find sustainable solutions.
A first step is a
planned dialogue with Japanese ship owners in collaboration with the Japanese
Ship Owners Association.
Source: environmental
news services.
