The NGO Shipbreaking Platform announced that 128 ships were sold for scrap to the South Asian beaches in the first quarter of 2017, reminding that beaching yards offer cheap, but dangerous and polluting scrapping.
The organization notes that ship owners have been aware of the detrimental effects of breaking ships on tidal beaches for more than 20 years, yet the selling to the beach yards brings bigger profit, and the existing environmental laws are easily circumvented, allowing this kind of practices to persist.
These practices are also cause of deaths of workers in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. In Gadani, Pakistan, many disasters including loss of life of shipbreaking workers have been reported. According to the NGO, despite these recent disasters, this quarter, 22 ships were sold for breaking at “one of the world’s most dangerous places to work”, which means that ship owners and cash buyers continue to trade vessels with Pakistan breakers.
In addition, 37 ships were sold to the Chittagong breaking yards, which is also known for major fatal incidents.
“Bangladesh continues to be the breaking destination where severe and fatal accidents happen most frequently, yet this has not been a deterrent for most shipowners and cash buyers to sell their ships to for breaking”, NGO Shipbreaking Platform explained.
However, the Alang beach in India was by far the most popular destination for end-of-life ships this quarter, with 69 ships sold for breaking. The yards in Alang have recently been portraying their practices as improved compared to Bangladesh and Pakistan, but the overall unnecessarily risky conditions of breaking ships on tidal beaches remains.
“Ships in Alang are taken apart in tidal waters using a method that is banned in Europe, the US and China and that makes it impossible to ensure rapid access for emergency vehicles and containment of pollutants such as oils and toxic paints”.
The NGO denounces that European companies accounted for half of the vessels beached in South Asia the first quarter and where involved in many of the fatal accidents that took place in the industry. For the first time, German owners topped the list with 26 ships sold to South Asian breakers, followed by Greek owners with 17 beached end-of-life vessels.
Whilst grey- and black listed flags, such as Comoros, Palau and St Kitts and Nevis, continue to be particularly popular for end-of-life ships, also ships registered under the flags Malta and Cyprus ended up on the beaches. The EU Regulation on Ship Recycling will prohibit the dismantling of EU-flagged ships in substandard yards such as those in Alang, Gadani and Chittagong.
However, as the release informs, by simply swapping flag to that of a non-EU country before selling the ship for scrap, ship owners can easily circumvent EU law., receiving assistance by crap dealers to this.
“The re-flagging before scrapping is a common practice and the Platform identified 38 ships, including two Malta flagged ships and one Madeira flagged ship, that changed their flag last quarter just weeks before hitting the beach”.
Although the EU is trying to redress the shipping industry’s addiction to beaching with the Ship Recycling Regulation, European ship owners continue these practices, resulting in the death of workers and pollution of sensitive coastal zones, to gain profit. NGO Shipbreaking Platform suggests that EU should develop a financial incentive to curb the re-flagging of the vessels to circumvent the legislation in place.
