Time to scrap unsafe shipbreaking

 
The Hong Kong convention effectively legitimises the ‘infamous’ ship-breaking yards in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Santanu Sanyal

India, along with Bangladesh and Pakistan, figured at the United Nations International Maritime Organisation’s convention on ship recycling held in Hong Kong recently. These three countries, accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the world’s demolition of ships, are also known for their yards employing underpaid, unprotected workers handling asbestos, mercury and other hazardous substances, throwing up a potential environment disaster.

In these demolition yards, where there are no health and safety regulations in force, huge ocean freighters and tankers are torn apart by workers virtually with their bare hands.

Right now, the scrap business is booming. With the world economy, and along with it world shipping, in a decline, the ship-breaking business is moving up. Many shipping companies that had acquired huge tonnage in good times are now keen to shed the unwanted tonnage and there could be no cheaper way of doing this than disposing of the vessel in a South Asian yard.

A ship-owner gets more than 10 times the price by selling in a yard in South Asia than to a European yard, where the regulations are much stricter. The IMO estimates that between 1990 and 2006, more than 10,000 ships that weighed more than 500 gross tonnes were recycled worldwide, most of them in South Asian yards.

safer recycling

Nearly two weeks ago, dozens of countries signed a new treaty to make ship recycling safer. The five-day diplomatic conference on scrap yard standards ended with adoption of the “Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009”.

The convention provides a regulatory framework to ensure that ships are disposed of in a safe and environment friendly manner at the end of their operating life, according to a post conference communiqué. “One of the most important requirements under the new convention is the need to have an updated inventory of hazardous materials on board a ship so that necessary precautionary measures could be taken to protect the workers as well as the environment at recycling yard,” the communiqué said.

Associated with the new convention will be a set of guidelines that are being, or will be developed by the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) to assist uniform implementation. The convention, which incorporates a port state control concept based on the no-more favourite treatment principle, ensures a level playing field for all parties while respecting the global nature of shipping advocating internationally applicable measures.

At its 56th session held in July 2007, MEPC made further progress on the draft text by agreeing that the proposed draft recycling convention would provide for:

a) the design, construction, operation and preparation of ships so as to facilitate safe and environmentally sound recycling, without compromising safety and operational efficiency of ships;

b) the operation of recycling facilities in a safe and environment-friendly manner, and

c) the establishment of an appropriate enforcement mechanism for ship recycling certification and reporting requirements.

In June 2008, the IMO Council endorsed the holding of the diplomatic conference in May 2009 in Hong Kong in order to consider the Ship Recycling Convention for Adoption.

Proposal rejected

The Hong Kong Convention rejected a proposal supported by over 100 human rights, labour and environment protection organisations from more than 30 countries to phase out deadly and polluting beaching operation — an operation where ships are dumped in high tide and then drift to beaches to be taken apart. “The new convention on ship recycling won’t stop a single toxic ship from being broken on the beach of a developing country,” said Ingvild Jenssen, Director of NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, an umbrella group of non-government organisations. He adds: “The convention legitimises the infamous breaking yards in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and actually rewards these exploitative operations while punishing those companies that have invested in safer and cleaner methods.”

Much of the ship-breaking in these three countries, as it was pointed out, would take place on soft sand beaches where access for heavy lifting equipment and emergency vehicles was difficult, if not impossible. So, beaching operations continue, even as workers, many of them children, suffer accidents including the loss of life and limb.

Also, beaches provided a poor environment to contain the pollutants released when ships were taken apart. “No developed country that has adopted the convention without the ban on beaching and has proclaimed the Hong Kong conference a success, will allow a ship to be broken on its beaches,” it was pointed out.

But the IMO defended the agreement pointing out that member-states had to deal with reality in an important multi-million dollar industry. Perhaps that explains everything.