Brussels —
During the summer, the Swedish-flagged Atlantic Cartier and Atlantic Conveyor,
operated by the Italian Grimaldi Group’s subsidiary Atlantic Container Line
(ACL), were sold for demolition. The German competent authorities were alerted
about the imminent illegal export of the ships from the port of Hamburg and
prompted to take action to stop the vessels from departing. Despite the
warnings and the clear signs that the ships were destined for scrap, the
authorities did not halt the ships. The ships hit the beach in Alang, India, on
the 20th of September and on the 7th of October.
International waste laws and
the EU Waste Shipment Regulation are usually circumvented by ship owners who
falsely declare that end-of-life ships are in continued operational use when
leaving a port, thereby concealing the fact that they are destined for
scrapping and have, therefore, become a waste. The cases of the Atlantic
Cartier and the Atlantic Conveyor are no exception.
The German authorities were
not the only ones that have been contacted before the vessels’ final voyage.
Also authorities from Canada and the UK, countries through which the Atlantic
Cartier and the Atlantic Conveyor sailed before arriving in Hamburg for their
last EU port call, knew that the ships had been sold to the beach; yet, when
questioned, ACL did not reveal that the ships were sold for breaking. Once
having left the EU, both vessels operated for a short while in South-Eastern
Africa – still under the same name, flag and ownership – waiting for the
attention on them to fade.
During that time, ACL
contacted the Swedish authorities asking for advice on which steps should be
taken if the company decided to recycle the ships. Despite the recommendations
of Sweden to scrap the vessels in the EU or in an OECD country, there was no
way to ensure that these recommendations would be followed, since at that point
the ships were no longer in the EU. Rather, it is clear that this communication
was a way for ACL to make it seem like the company had acted diligently by
seeking advice from the flag-state, as well as to fraudulently make it seem as
the decision to dispose of the container carriers was only taken once outside
of EU waters.
End-of-life sales to South
Asian yards are done with the help of a cash-buyer, a company specialised in
trading end-of-life vessels to the dirty and dangerous beaching yards. It is
not the first time that Grimaldi Group sends its ships to be broken on the
beaches: the Atlantic Concert and Atlantic Compass were beached in Alang last
year. In 2016, during an official meeting in Rome, the NGO Shipbreaking
Platform raised serious concerns regarding the more than 90 Italian-owned
end-of-life vessels that had been sent to dirty and dangerous scrapping yards
in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in the last seven years. The Platform advised
the Italian Ship Owners Association, including representatives of Grimaldi
Group, to stop selling their end-of-life vessels to unscrupulous cash buyers,
and urged the Italian ship owners to ensure the safe and environmentally sound
recycling of their ships.
Source:
recycling
portal. 12 October 2017
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