On Monday, the EU member states’ experts
on ship recycling met in Brussels to discuss the latest developments, six
months ahead of the application of the 2013 Ship Recycling Regulation. With the
recent decision by the Chinese government to stop the import of end-of-life
ships for scrapping, the shipping industry is quick to lament that there will
not be enough recycling capacity and that there will be too few options for
them under the EU List of approved recycling facilities. The industry claims
that the standard set by the EU must be lowered so that beaching yards can be
approved.
As much as it is a pity that the Chinese
yards who have already made efforts to be included on the List may now no
longer be receiving EU-flagged ships for recycling, the Platform has calculated
that the facilities which are currently on the List, the 21 EU-based ones only,
are in fact sufficient to recycle the entire EU-flagged fleet at end-of-life.
[1]
Moreover, there are still other
facilities outside the EU, as well as those operating in Italy and Norway,
which are expected to be included on the List before the application of the
Regulation. Indian beaching yards that have applied to be on the EU List will
not be included as there is no way for these yards to comply with the
requirements of the Regulation as long as ships are beached. The overall capacity
and sizes of all the facilities that are compliant with EU law will easily
accommodate the recycling needs of EU-flagged ships by 1 January 2019. The
scaremongering of the shipping industry therefore needs to be debunked, and the
European Commission should not bow-down to the “fake news” spread by the ship
owners.
SeaEurope, IndustriAll Europe and the
Platform have urged that a financial incentive is needed to push more ship
owners towards clean and safe ship recycling. French trade Union CGT also recently
called upon the French government to support the development of ship recycling
capacity in the Mediterranean. With China potentially leaving the international
market of ship recycling already next year, there is a clear opportunity for
other regions to tailor for clean and safe ship recycling off the beach.
“The EU should aim at ensuring that the
European shipping industry no longer causes harm to the environment and workers
on the South Asian beaches. 30 percent of end-of-life ships are owned by European
companies – compared to only six percent registered under an EU flag. There
will be a need to support the expansion of existing or building of new
facilities to ensure the clean and safe recycling of the many larger vessels
that are owned by European companies”, says Ingvild Jenssen, Director of the
NGO Shipbreaking Platform. “Circular economy is the buzz-word and a return
scheme for ships is the solution”, she adds.
[1] The 21 facilities that are currently
on the EU List have the capacity to recycle at least 1 mill LDT. Whilst most
can only take in smaller vessels, at least 10 of the facilities on the List can
take in larger vessels. In 2017, less than 500.000 LDT were registered under an
EU flag at end-of-life, out of which 245.827 LDT ended up on the South Asian
beaches. All EU-flagged vessels broken last year could have been recycled in
facilities that are on the EU List, both in terms of LDT and size. Even when
adding also the 423.369 LDT of the 24 ships that swapped their EU flag for a
non-EU one few weeks before beaching, the total tonnage does not exceed the
capacity of the current EU-listed facilities.
Source: Hellenic shipping news. 21 June 2018
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