Greenpeace activists this morning boarded a ship in Antwerp to investigate whether or not it contains hazardous materials
Greenpeace activists boarded a ship in Antwerp harbour this
morning to investigate whether or not it contains hazardous
materials and to start preparing a preliminary public inventory of
findings. The environmental organisation and an independent
asbestos expert (1) took samples of the Greek owned ship, the
'Silver Ray', because they are concerned the vessel is about to be
exported as scrap to a shipbreaking yard in Asia without first
being cleaned of dangerous toxic materials. (2)
"Ship owners must provide public inventories of hazardous
materials on their ships as a matter of routine and guarantee
dangerous substances are safely removed before vessels are
scrapped. By failing to do this, they're exposing thousands of
workers in Asia directly to poisons and causing catastrophic
environmental problems. In fact they even profit from this practice
which is totally unacceptable," said Greenpeace campaigner, Frank
Petersen.
The 'Silver Ray' is one of hundreds of ships that are sold to
Asian scrap yards every year. A new Greenpeace study released today
(3) weighs up the shipping industry's economic gain from selling
ships for scrap and the human and environmental costs of breaking
contaminated ships. It concludes that shipping companies earn more
than a billion US dollars from selling scrap vessels every year but
do not spend a penny on protecting people's health and the
environmental by cleaning their vessels of hazardous waste. Costs
of breaking contaminated ships borne by workers and people living
near shipbreaking yards include loss of livelihood, cleaning up
polluted sediments, asbestos exposure liabilities and death or
disease caused by exposure to toxic substances.
"By selling ships as scrap to Asia, ship owners can conveniently
divest themselves of any responsibility of the environmental
hazards that their ships contain. If they spent a fraction of their
profits on cleaning their vessels of poisons before they are
scrapped, thousands of lives would be saved and the Asian
environment protected," added Petersen.
The results of this study will be presented to the delegates of
to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) meeting in London
next week. The IMO will discuss the necessity of mandatory
guidelines for ship owners to stop the pollution associated with
shipbreaking.
"A strong and mandatory framework must to be set up by the
international community to make sure ship owners are held
accountable and liable for their ships and any hazardous materials
they contain," concluded Petersen.
A preliminary inventory of all hazardous materials Greenpeace
finds on board the 'Silver Ray' will be made public next week.
VVPR info: For copies of today's study see: http://www.greenpeaceweb.org/shipbreak/evasionpolluter.pdfFor futher information on shipbreaking see: www.greenpeaceweb.org/shipbreak Images of shipbreaking and today's sampling activity are available, Photo Desk, +31 20 5249580/592
Notes: (1) Translab, Belgium(2) Last night, Greenpeace screened a film on the 'Silver Ray's' hull to highlight the human and environmental costs associated with dismantling ships that still have toxic substances on board.(3) « The Continuous Evasion of the polluter pays principle » September 2002. The report includes personal testimonies from workers at ship breaking yeards in India, Bangladesh, and Turkey.