1 Background, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

Shipbreaking in OECD

1 Background

In this report the possibilities for shipbreaking¹ within OECD countries are analysed. Today, ships that are ready for scrapping are often sent to demolition under conditions that would not be accepted in OECD countries with respect to environment, health and safety conditions of the work. This occurs in the beaching yards in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and in Turkey. Internationally, thus issue is addressed through the work carried out by UNEP’s Basel Convention secretariat, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and shipping organisations such as Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO).

The regulation of demolition of vessels is the subject of discussions between various authorities and industry organisations. Below is cited some of the international regulation applied to shipbreaking:

The 1989 Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (the Basel Convention).

1972 London Dumping Convention (1996 Protocol).

The 1993 Council Regulation (EEC) No. 259/93 on the Supervision and Control of Shipments of Waste within, into and out of the European Community.

None of the regulations were originally meant to be applied to shipbreaking and it is argued by stakeholders that they may not be directly suitable to the issue. This has led to a number of activities related to regulation of shipbreaking, including the following authorities and organisations, which have over the last five years developed or drafted policies, guidelines and assessments on various aspects of the final destiny of obsolete ships under the headings of decommissioning, dismantling, demolition, scrapping, recycling or shipbreaking, Table 1.1.

This project does not attempt a comprehensive review of these activities, but is directed towards establishing a short working list of OECD shipyards with environmentally "acceptable" shipbreaking practises.

Table 1.1
Selected developed or drafted policies, guidelines and assessments on various aspects of shipbreaking issues.

Basel Convention Working Group	Draft technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of the full and partial dismantling of ships
IMO MEPC	Several papers and notes on the possible regulation of shipbreaking, including a recent draft guideline on recycling of ships
Commission of the European Communities	Technological and Economic Study of Ship Scrapping in Europe
ILO	Shipbreaking: A Background Paper Worker safety in the ship-breaking industries
Marisec	Industry code of practice on ship recycling
BIMCO	Decommissioning and Recycling of Ships and the Capacity of the Recycling Industry Standard contract for the sale of vessels for demolition and recycling (Demolishcon)
Norwegian Ministry of Environment, Norwegian Shipowners Association, Norwegian Research Council	Decommissioning of Ships – Environmental Standards Third Party Environmental Verification - Ship Decommissioning (ENVER) Ship Decommissioning in the OECD Area Decommissioning Guidelines - The GUIDEC Approach
US Navy and US Marad	Disposal options for ships
US EPA	A Guide for Ship Scrappers: Tips for Regulatory Compliance
Greenpeace	Campaign and several reports on "Ships for scrap"

The issue of acceptability of a shipyard’s demolition practises for the present work is based on a perceived environmental compliance for the facilities. This will be referred to commonly as Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) viz. a viz. the Basel Convention working group draft (Basel Convention 2002).

Guidance documents that directly addresses the environmental practice and related dos and don'ts of shipbreaking are:

Draft technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of the full and partial dismantling of ships (Basel Convention Working Group)

A Guide for Ship Scrappers: Tips for Regulatory Compliance (US EPA)

Industry code of practice on ship recycling (Marisec)

Decommissioning of Ships – Environmental Standards (Norwegian authorities)

The IMO MEPC has discussed the inclusion of recycling of ships on the IMO agenda and agreed to take the item on board as a lead agency, in co-operation with the Basel Convention, ILO and other stakeholders. The MEPC has established a Correspondence Group under the leadership of Bangladesh to look into the matter and report to MEPC. MEPC expects to present an IMO guidance document in November 2003.

¹	Shipbreaking, scrapping, dismantling, demolition and recycling are not well defined terms. No distinction is implied in this report solely on the term as to the crude beach scrapping or the more refined process employed in pier breaking.