Bureau Veritas Solutions Marine & Offshore urged the shipping industry to adopt higher standards in ship recycling. For this reason, BVS provides insight into the challenges of meeting ship recycling requirements, as well ten tips to achieve compliance.
Two workers lost their lives at a shipbreaking yard in in Bangladesh, on Saturday, October 12. According to local sources, the probable cause of the deaths may have been that they inhaled toxic gas. Dangerous shipbreaking in Bangladesh is a great area of concern for human rights organizations and working unions around the world, over the unsafe working conditions and polluting ship dismantling practices.
In the 5th version of European List of ship recycling facilities, the European Commission added eight new yards to the List. These include 7 European yards, namely 2 in Denmark and 5 in Norway, as well as 1 yard in Turkey. With the new update, the European List of ship recycling facilities currently contains a total of 34 yards.
Bunge became the first in its industry to join the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative, an online platform which gathers information from shipowners on key disclosures regarding social and environmental measures. SRTI and its members aspire to tackle challenges in parts of the ship recycling industry, including pollution in the environment and occupational health and safety risks for workers.
The Asian Shipowners’ Association urged China and India to ratify the Hong Kong Convention on recycling. Namely, during its general meeting in Thailand on May 28, the association explained only by ratifying the Convention will an environmentally-sound recycling of ships take place worldwide.
As IMO informed, Malta became the latest country to accede to IMO’s treaty for safe and environmentally-sound ship recycling, namely the Hong Kong Convention. H.E. Victor Camilleri, Permanent Representative of Malta to IMO deposited the instrument of accession. Twelve contracting States party to the Convention now represent more than 28.8% of world merchant shipping tonnage.
Ten years after the adoption of IMO’s Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, in May 2009, there has been progress with voluntary application of its requirements, but the treaty needs to enter into force for it to be widely implemented. For this reason, IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim urged Member States who have not yet ratified the Convention, to do so, in order to bring it into force as soon as possible.
A fire broke out in the engine room on board a tanker, beached in Chittagong, on February 18, killing two workers. According to information, the two men died while scrapping the ship Greek Warrior at Shagorika Ship Breaking Yard. One of the men was burned and rushed to Chittagong Medical College Hospital, but he died before reaching the hospital. The body of the second man was discovered on board a few hours later.
Toxic Watch Alliance, an environmental NGO, has pointed out the indifference of the Narendra Modi-led government in looking the other way as end-of-life ships from other countries, many of them carrying banned toxic and other hazardous substances, continue to be dismantled in the ship-breaking yards of Alang in Gujarat, India. Consequently, Dereo O’Brien, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, sent a letter to Trinamool Congress MP in Rajya Sabha.
Mr. Henning Gramann, CEO at GSR Services GmbH, talks about latest developments concerning ship breaking, highlighting that proper planning and assistance by experts is required for the preparation of an Inventory of Hazardous Material (IHM), as required by HKC and EU-SRR.
