Japanese companies implicated in the illegal export of a
ship for breaking in India where six workers have died this year
Brussels, 4 June 2014 - The NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, a
coalition of environmental, human rights and labour organisations, sent a
letter to the Flemish Environment Ministry Monday calling on Belgium to seize
the end-of-life car carrier GLOBAL SPIRIT [1]. The ship is now docked in
Antwerp and loading 2nd hand cars to be delivered in West Africa before heading
for the infamous ship breaking beaches in India where at least six workers have
died so far this year crushed by steel plates and many more are sickened by
occupational disease due to ship-borne hazardous substances like asbestos or
PCBs.
Under the Waste Shipment Regulation of the European Union,
Belgium is obliged to prevent the export of all hazardous wastes – including
from ships – from its shores to developing countries. The Regulation was
designed to prevent the environmental injustice of rich countries exporting
their toxic wastes to impoverished countries lacking the technology and
infrastructure to manage such wastes. The European Commission has clearly stated
that the laws in place are applicable in the case of the GLOBAL SPIRIT and that
Belgium has an obligation to ensure that the ship is not exported for breaking
to India.
“Belgium must move quickly to prevent this ship from
becoming a fugitive from the law. They must hold the ship, ascertain the
destination and survey it to assess the amounts of asbestos, PCBs and other
hazardous substances it is likely to contain,” said Ingvild Jenssen, Policy
Advisor of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking. “According to European and Belgian
law, only if all hazardous materials are removed from the ship can it be
allowed to be exported to South Asia.”
The end-of-life vehicle carrier GLOBAL SPIRIT has been used
to transport cars for Nissan-Renault on a regular route Morocco-EU-Turkey and
is currently under long term time charter with Hoegh Autoliners under the
management of Autotrans based in France. The GLOBAL SPIRIT is sold to an Indian
breaker for scrap at a price of 6,8 million dollars (512 USD per ton) [2]. Only
by using cheap labour and avoiding costly environmental protections can a
profit from the steel be made at this high a price. The ship is expected to
contain asbestos in its construction as well as explosive and flammable fuel
residues which lies as a hidden danger for thousands of unprotected workers in
Alang.
The Platform has sent a letter to the Japanese owners of the
ship, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Limited (MOL) and Nissan Car Carriers (NCC), calling
for a sustainable solution for the dismantling of the GLOBAL SPIRIT and the
adoption of a company policy on ship recycling that will ensure dismantling of
their fleet under safe and green conditions [3]. The charterers of the ship,
Hoegh Autoliners, which also are 20 percent shareholders in NCC, have already
adopted a sustainable ship recycling policy for their ships ‘off the beach’.
“So far this year six workers have been reported killed by
falling steel plates at the Alang shipbreaking yard. Contrary to the claims of
the Alang breakers and cash buyers such as GMS, the brutal death of these
workers stand as a stark testament to the unsuitability of using ocean beaches
for the safe and sound recycling of ships,” said Ritwick Dutta, environmental
lawyer at NGO Shipbreaking Platform member organisation LIFE. “Such practices
would never be allowed in Belgium and it should not be allowed in any country
in the world.”
Currently over 70 percent of the global commercial fleet of
end-of-life ships are run ashore and broken by hand on the beaches of India,
Bangladesh and Pakistan, where labour is cheap, labour rights poorly respected
and pollution laws weak, lacking or not-enforced. Yet in Europe, government
owned ships are being broken only in sophisticated yards located in developed
countries while commercial vessels are still too often exported even when such
exports violate the law [4].
“It will be a glaring double standard and a sad irony if the
French and Belgian governments are forced to use a Belgium yard to recycle
their old ships and meanwhile Belgium fails to act to stop another toxic ship
from being exported from their shores,” said Ingvild Jenssen. “Both government
and commercially owned ships are illegal to export to developing countries, and
they should all be managed in green ship recycling yards in developed countries
and not on the dangerous and polluting beaches of South Asia,” she said.
Source: NGO shipbreaking platform. 4 June 2014
