To be included in the European List, ship recycling facilities, irrespective of their location, have to comply with a number of safety and environmental requirements. In fact, these are standards under which European yards have had to operate for many years. The beaching method is not allowed, and requirements related to downstream toxic waste management as well as labour rights are included. Facilities operating in the EU are approved by their national authorities for listing, whilst the European Commission assesses applications received from the ship recycling facilities located in third countries. 

European shipping companies account today for about one third of the end-of-life tonnage beached in in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. 

Faced with also a mounting demand from investors to avoid using beaching yards, ship owners claim that the EU List must be expanded to include yards that have obtained a so-called Statement of Compliance with the Hong Kong Convention. 76 beaching yards in Alang have already obtained such Statements from consultants hired by the facilities themselves: a box-ticking exercise strongly denounced as green-washing by NGOs.

In a recent report, the Platform and T&E provide data to show that there currently is enough capacity at the 26 yards on the EU List to handle the recycling of EU flagged ships. However, it is very simple for ship owners to swap their EU flag to that of an non-EU flag at end-of-life. Comoros, St Kitts and Nevis and Palau are particularly popular flags of convenience for vessels that are sold to beaching yards. 

NOTE

[1] A report written jointly by Ecorys, the classification society DNVGL and Erasmus University School of Law, and published by the European Commission in July 2016, looks into the possibility of introducing a financial incentive to enhance safe and environmentally sound ship recycling. The report recommends that contributions for a ship recycling licence are collected from all ships visiting EU ports, regardless of their flag. The capital amount accumulated during the operational life of the vessel would be set aside for the ship and be earmarked to reduce the cost gap between substandard and sustainable end-of-life ship management. This amount would only be paid back to the last owner of the vessel if the ship is recycled in a facility approved by the EU.