On the occasion of China’s recently-announced plans to stop permitting foreign-flagged vessels to be dismantled at its shipyards, the International Ship Recycling Association (ISRA) noted that this decision is challenging for the ship recycling industry as a whole, as it could force shipowners to accept lower standards.
The announcement to stop importing recycle ships in China could close some of the best recycling facilities in the world that match the Hong Kong Convention and the EU ship recycling regulation requirements.
As explained Chinese ship recycling facilities have been significantly upgraded since the IMO started to discuss Ship Recycling regulations, which made these yards the first in the world to recycle ships at the highest standards available on Health, Safety and Environment. According to ISRA, the method of Ship Recycling in China has reduced the total amount of waste and transformed it in recovered reusable materials in an environmentally sound manner.
China as a fast developing country and ship building nation should in our opinion continue to take their producer responsibility to also continue to include Ship Recycling. The last 20 years China has contributed greatly to the method of Ship Recycling and economic viable recycling operations…The records in China have shown that ship recycling can be an environmental sound and safe industry
As such, if the announcement of the central government in China is activated, the result is that well over 2.5 million tons of high standard capacity is taken out of the global market and can be seen as a major step back in the global development towards environmental and human safe ship recycling, ISRA underlined.
As a result, ship owners that have deliberately selected China in the past as the best ship recycling Country in the world have to find new solutions for facilities with equal standards. The lost ship recycling capacity cannot be found within a short period and this could force these ship owners to accept lower standards. This negative trend is hard for the industry to accept and understand, added ISRA.
Secretary General of ISRA, Mr. Bernard Veldhoven, stated:
ISRA is concerned about this recent development and is available to regulators around the world to discuss and assist in keeping this important capacity for the maritime industry. We would welcome the Chinese Government to review its announcement and maintain this important ship recycling capacity for the future.
According to NGO Shipbreaking Platform figures from its annual report, China ranked fourth in ship recycling in 2017, with 11% of the gross tonnage dismantled globally, after India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
