Where should ships be dismantled?
47. Our witnesses all agreed that ships should be
dismantled to high standards of workforce health and safety and
environmental protection. However, they disagreed over whether,
in order to meet these standards, ships should be dismantled only
in developed countries. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace argued
that the proximity principle should apply and that, as far as
possible, developed countries should dismantle their own ships.
Where this was not possible, dismantling should be done in the
same region.[55] Friends
of the Earth said:
it is a matter of principle and it is about countries
taking responsibility for the waste that they generate. [The proximity
principle] should incentivise countries to minimise the waste
they generate and to put in place facilities to look after [it]
… If you are having to deal with you own mess at home you
will take it more seriously than if it is sailing over the horizon
to be disposed of where nobody can see it.[56]
48. The Chamber of Shipping argued that the most
important factor in choosing where to send a ship for dismantling
was whether the dismantling facility could meet the required health,
safety and environmental standards; after that the decision was
an economic one.[57]
It also emphasised the global nature of the shipping industry,
saying that it was very difficult to say which country should
be regarded as 'home' for any particular ship. BP Shipping, a
Chamber member, said:
we are a UK-based shipping organisation of the [international]
BP group. We have ships that we were recycling that were built
in Japan, they spent their entire lives trading around the world.
If they had ever come to this country, they would only have come
on a few occasions and were then finally dismantled in China.
Where is 'home' for that ship?[58]
49. It may also be the case that a greater proportion
of the ship can be re-used if it is dismantled in Asia: scrap
metal prices are higher there and items such as computers and
even light bulbs can be re-used whereas in Europe they would be
more likely to be disposed of.[59]
50. Greenpeace argued that, although facilities in
Asia varied in their standards of health, safety and environmental
protection, none were satisfactory:
China, I would say, is improving and at least the
dismantling is done on the quayside rather than simply on a beach
… [but] it is by no means approaching what we would call
high environmental or health and safety standards … what
happens to [the] hazardous wastes is far from certain.[60]
51. The Chamber of Shipping told us that facilities
in China were investing in raising environmental standards in
order to attract socially responsible ship owners and that the
Chinese government was in the process of certifying yards and
only allowing those that met a certain standard to import vessels
for dismantling.[61]
It said that suitable facilities for the larger ships do not exist
in developed countries and that the companies in China that its
members dealt with not only met the required environmental standards
but also treated their staff properly and paid them properly "in
relation to their own economy".[62]
52. Greenpeace has called for the development of
ship scrapping facilities in the UK and Europe, partly in order
to apply the proximity and polluter pays principles to ship dismantling
and partly because:
the UK has the regulatory infrastructure, the health
and safety infrastructure and the medical infrastructure to be
best placed, or one of the best placed, countries to make sure
that environmental impacts are minimised. We have the technology
and we have the know-how.[63]
53. For us, the most important consideration in
deciding where a ship should be dismantled is that the level of
health and safety protection for the workers and the environmental
protection at ship dismantling facilities meet the highest standards;
as stated above, we believe that such standards should be stated
in an internationally binding agreement which sets out a clear
statement of minimum standards of ship dismantling, regardless
of where the dismantling takes place. The Government should work
to ensure that the International Maritime Organisation gives priority
to producing such an agreement. It is clear that the majority
of large vessels are dismantled under wholly inadequate conditions
on beaches in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh; it is unacceptable
that OECD-based companies, who are also members of the International
Maritime Organisation, should continue to permit their vessels
to be dismantled in this way.
54. As regards ship dismantling in the United
Kingdom, the decision to grant or deny permission for ship dismantling
facilities is clearly for the planning authority concerned and
the environmental and health and safety regulators. However, it
seems to us that the UK has the potential to establish an industry
in ship dismantling which can be done safely and offer economic
benefits to the communities in which is it carried out.
49 
