In 1995 the Basel Convention banned the export of hazardous
wastes, including products for recycling from developed to
developing countries. However, hazardous wastes contained as
components in old ships such as asbestos, PCBs, toxic paints and
fuel residues have continued to be sent to countries such as India,
Turkey, Bangladesh and China. Today, by explicitly declaring
redundant ships as waste that ship-sized loop hole has been
closed.
"This is a major step towards ensuring that the people and the
environments of the world's ship breaking countries no longer have
to bear the burden of the shipping industry's toxic trash," said
Marietta Harjono of Greenpeace. "At a time when some 2,200 single
hull oil tankers are due to be scrapped, the decision could not
have come a day too soon. With today's decision we can work to
avoid solving one environmental crisis by creating another in ship
breaking countries."
Under the decision, the 163 signatories to the Basel Convention
must now apply the Basel Convention to ships destined for breaking.
They must prohibit exports without the consent of recipient
countries, and must assure that shipbreaking is performed in an
environmentally sound manner and minimize the transboundary
movement of hazardous wastes.
The latter obligation can be expected to increase demands for
decontamination of ships prior to export which had been urged
during the meeting by the shipbreaking countries of India,
Bangladesh, and Turkey. It will also create new demand for the
development of 'green' ship recycling capacity in developed
countries.
Many in the shipping industry opposed the Basel Convention's
involvement in this issue, hoping instead that the International
Maritime Organization (IMO) would assume total control over
end-of-life ships and impose far less rigorous standards. The
United States, Japan, and representatives of the shipping industry
fought in vain to block the decision.
In a last minute statement, the US which is not a Basel
signatory, denounced the decision arguing that it does not believe
end of life ships are waste. The US is currently seeking a home for
its fleet of redundant naval 'ghost ships'.
The decision recognised the need to assist in the improvement of
existing shipbreaking facilities in developing countries. It also
recognised the work taking place in the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) and encouraged them to likewise seek to address
some of the outstanding issues with respect to end-of-life ships in
their own regime.
"The Basel Convention decided that while the IMO is welcome to
help solve aspects of the problem in the future, Basel must begin
to solve it today," said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network
(BAN). "They vowed to fulfill their existing obligations and
prevent the cheap and dirty dumping of toxic ships on some of the
poorest communities on earth - a situation that really is the shame
of shipping, killing a person per day, either from the slow death
by cancer, or from the violent death from gas explosions."
VVPR info: www.greenpeaceweb.org/shipbreak