ICS: Recycling yards will face compliance costs

However, recycling yards face their own two year journey to reach compliance, as well as the looming challenge of regional regulation in the form of the EU’s Ship Recycling Regulation, ICS highlights.

Mohammed Zahirul Islam, managing director at PHP, the first shipyard to become HKC compliant in 2017,  told ICS that the journey to compliance was a five-year, multi-stage process for PHP.

We started in 2015 and by 2017 we were able to be compliant across the first half of the yard – around 100,000 tonnes in capacity

… said Zahirul. The second phase began in 2018 and was completed in January 2020, bringing total compliant capacity at PHP to 150,000 tonnes.

Zahirul said the decision to undertake the $10m investment to reach HKC standards was spurred by talk at international conferences of yards in Bangladesh harming their workers and the environment, and a will to correct that reputation.

PHP has statements of compliance from multiple classification societies and some shipowners choose to go further in their due diligence. NYK has a full time representative at PHP to look at every block and ensure that operations are HKC compliant, said Zahirul.

ClassNK Corporate Officer Abdul Rahim told ICS that the certification process usually takes one to two years from initial document review through to the onsite inspection; ClassNK has issued statements of HKC compliance to 57 yards globally, 3 in Bangladesh.

HKC ratification is a blessing for all stakeholders in this field. Ultimately the workers’ life standards, the environment, and future generations will benefit from this.

… Mehrul Karim, Ceo Kabir Ship Recycling told ICS.

Mohammed Zahirul Islam also said that HKC will make sure shipowners and ship recyclers all have responsibilities and each will have different roles to play so that recycling takes place, sustainably and responsibly.