According
to new data released today by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, 835 large
ocean-going commercial vessels were sold to the scrap yards in 2017. 543 were
broken down – by hand – on the tidal beaches of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan:
amounting to 80,3% of all tonnage dismantled globally.
“The
figures of 2017 are a sad testimony of the shipping industry’s unwillingness to
act responsibly. The reality is that yards with infrastructure fit for the
heavy and hazardous industry that ship recycling is, and that can ensure safe
working conditions and containment of pollutants, are not being used by ship
owners”, says Ingvild Jenssen, Founder and Director of the NGO Shipbreaking
Platform. “It is particularly shameful that so many European shipping companies
scrap their vessels on beaches. Their obvious lack of interest to ensure that shipbreaking
workers around the world enjoy best available technologies, and that the
environment is equally protected everywhere, clearly calls for additional
pressure from authorities, shipping clients and financers”, she adds.
The
negative consequences of shipbreaking are real and felt by many. On the one
hand, workers – often exploited migrants and some of them children – lose their
life, suffer from injuries caused by fires, falling steel plates and the
general unsafe working conditions, as well as from occupational diseases due to
exposure to toxic fumes and materials. On the other hand, coastal ecosystems,
and the local communities depending on them, are devastated by toxic spills and
various pollutants leaking into the environment as a result of breaking vessels
on beaches.
Despite the terrible accident that shook the
international shipbreaking community in 2016, no lesson has been learned in
Pakistan. In 2017, at least 10 workers lost their lives at the shipbreaking
yards on the beach of Gadani. The Platform documented 15 deaths in the
Bangladeshi yards last year, where also at least another 22 workers were
seriously injured. Whilst international and local NGOs were repeatedly denied
access to the Indian shipbreaking yards, the Platform was informed of at least
eight fatal accidents in Alang in 2017.
Source:
hellenic
shipping news. 21 February 2018
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