Ship breaking companies will have to store
radioactive and other hazardous waste in a temporary facility at their yards
before getting rid of it through registered recyclers under amendments proposed
to the Shipbreaking Code 2013.
The ministry of shipping released the
proposed amendments, which are in line with the requirements of the Atomic
Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), on Thursday for public feedback.
Ship breakers will also need to appoint a
safety officer to ensure the protocols are met.
Hazardous waste like lead-acid batteries and
other lead-bearing waste needs to be disposed of through registered recyclers.
Electric and electronic waste will have to be recycled through registered
E-waste recyclers.
“Apart from these amendments, we have also
asked Bureau of India Standards (BIS) to frame a steel classification for us.
Based on this, the steel would be classified as the one that could be converted
into secondary steel and the other which needs to be discarded,” a shipping
ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
The shipping ministry also proposed reducing
the time for submitting documents from three weeks to seven days before the
expected arrival of a ship for recycling. The documents have to be perused by
the state maritime board/port authority, state pollution control board and the
customs department.
The ship recycler or owner would also be
required to submit an assessment of hazardous wastes in the structure of the
ship and on board as far as practicable by reference to the ship’s drawings,
technical specifications, stores and manifest, in consultation with the
shipbuilder, equipment manufacturer and others.
These amendments have been introduced after
the shipping ministry’s consultations on the first draft of the amendments last
year drew flak from environmental groups.
Gopal Krishna of Toxics Watch Alliance (TWA),
an environmental group fighting against health hazards and pollution caused by
shipbreaking, said the UN Special Rapporteur had recommended an independent
study to assess the actual and potential adverse effects caused by the
discharge of hazardous substances and materials into the natural environment,
but it had never been done.
“It is an established fact under Basel
Convention’s technical guidelines and recent European Commission’s technical
guidelines that a beach is not an appropriate place for hazardous industrial
activity and hazardous waste management. However, we continue to do so,”
Krishna said.
He said end-of-life toxic ships are entering
Indian waters in a myriad disguises, exposing vulnerabilities in India’s
maritime and environmental security.
The UN Special Rapporteur’s assessment report
on shipbreaking in India reads: “…in India ships are dismantled on beaches, a
method commonly referred to as “beaching”. This method of ship dismantling
fails to comply with generally accepted norms and standards on environmental
protection. Although very little work has been carried out to assess its
environmental impact, the dismantling of ships on sandy beaches without any
containment other than the hull of the ship itself appears to have caused high
levels of contamination of soil, air, and marine and freshwater resources in
many South Asian countries, and to have adversely affected the livelihood of
local communities surrounding the shipbreaking facilities, which often rely on
agriculture and fishing for their subsistence”.
Source: Hellenic shipping news. 18 June 2016
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