MUMBAI, India — Today Greenpeace handed over the report called "Destination unknown: European Single hull Oil Tankers-No place to go" to Dr. Kant Singh, Secretary General, The Council of EU Chambers of Commerce in India (in the absence of the head of the delegation of the European commission in India.)
Greenpeace activists handed over the petition to the European Commission against dumping of single hull oil tankers on asian beaches.
Greenpeace, warns of massive environmental contamination of
Asian beaches in the coming years as a result of a global phase out
of single hull oil tankers. The international environmental
organisation is calling upon the European Union, which is
responsible for one third of the tankers to be phased out, to take
urgent action to protect human health and the environment in
shipbreaking countires.
Following the Erika and Prestige accidents the EU (and the
world) moved to phase out single hull oil tankers. According to the
Greenpeace analysis, over 2000 tankers will be removed from the
water and scrapped in the next 5 years. Some 1,120 (representing 55
m DWT) will need to be scrapped over the next 13 months, a figure
dwarfing previous estimates. According to the analysis some 334
tankers (representing 16 m DWT) are either owned by European
companies or registered and flagged in Europe.
The investigation also reveals a staggering collective cargo
onboard the banned ships equal to more than two Prestige oil tanker
disaster.
Current ship breaking practices are no more than a scandalous
form of the international waste trade. A trade banned under the
Basel Convention. The shipping industry promotes and exploits
confusion and a lack of regulatory enforcement by the international
community; ships flagged or owned by OECD countries are routinely
transferred to non-OECD breaking yards, taking a devastating toll
on workers and the surrounding environments.
"Dumping of Toxic sinlge hull oil tankers from EU to
shipbreaking countries in general and in India in particular are
unaccpeted transfer of responsibilities and are illegal. We would
like to remind them that India is not a dumping ground of EU,
therefore they must stop doing so. We further demand from them that
all single hull tankers coming out of EU soil are decontaminated
before export and are delivered to shipbreakers with full inventory
of toxic materials on board." said Ramapati Kumar of Greenpeace
India.
As a major player in the ship breaking explosion, the EU has not
only a responsibility but an opportunity to once and for all bring
the scandal of the shipping industry practises under control and
within the norms of international standards protecting developing
countries from industrial nations' unwanted toxic waste.
Greenpeace demands from EU that:
1. EU institutions to take urgent action on EU controlled single
hull oil tankers, by enforcing the EU Waste Shipment
regulation.
2. The EU institutions to fight the lack of transparency in the
shipping and to develop a definitive and consolidated list of
single hull oil tankers subject to phase out regulations.
3. Greenpeace demands an immediate commitment from EU transport
ministers and EU Commission that the toxic burden of Europe's
single hull oil tankers will not end up on Asian beaches.
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For more information:
Ramapati Kumar, Campaigner, Greenpeace India -
Tel - (0) 9845535414 Email - 