A GREENPEACE- FIDH Report in Cooperation with YPSA re end-of-life ships
The ”End of Life Ships – the human cost of breaking ships ” is a joint report by Greenpeace and FIDH, which was published in December 2005, that aims to shed light on the extremely poor working and environmental conditionsthat are still prevailing at shipbreaking yards all over the world. The report illustrates this situation by usingthe specific examples of the two biggest shipbreaking countries: India and Bangladesh.
Shipbreaking involves environmental justice as well as human rights issues. This is why,for the first time, Greenpeace and FIDH decided to bring together their expertise in theserespective fields and publish this joint report .Shipbreaking yards provide the last resting place for End of Life Ships. At these yards, shipsare scrapped, primarily for their steel content.
Ship scrapping, often referred to as ‘shipbreaking’, provides employment to thousands of workers in Asia and allows the recyclingof many materials used in the ship’s construction.
However, it is a dirty and dangerousbusiness. Almost all of the vessels condemned for breaking contain hazardous substancessuch as asbestos, oil sludge, paints containing lead, other heavy metals like cadmium andarsenic, poisonous biocides as well as PCBs and even radioactive substances
People who lose their lives due to shipbreaking activities are hardly ever mentioned andwhen they are reported, it is mostly as ‘numbers’ and ‘statistics’, whether it is in governmental or intergovernmental fora or in the media.
Greenpeace and FIDH delegations wentto the working and living places of these workers in India and Bangladesh and learned more about the real stories behind these statistics.
You may read the report by clicking here
Also read relevant articles
Regulations related to end-of-life ships
Agreement on EU ship recycling regime
