Tag: EU list

Press Release – European Commission Must Not Approve Beaching Yards on the Updated EU List

Posted on by Nicola Mulinaris

NGO Shipbreaking Platform urges the European Commission to reverse its shocking proposal to include two beaching facilities in the 16th update of the EU List of ship recycling facilities. 

 

Beaching yards in Alang-Sosiya, Gujarat, India, including Shree Ram and YSI Recyclers (2025)

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on its proposed 16th update of the EU List of ship recycling facilities. While the proposal includes the removal of yet another Turkish shipbreaking yard due to recurring deficiencies, two beaching yards: Shree Ram and YSI Recyclers, located in Alang-Sosiya, India, are proposed to be included. This represents a significant shift from previous editions of the List and raises serious concerns on the future direction of the EU Ship Recycling Regulation (EU SRR).

 

The objective of the EU SRR is to ensure safe and environmentally sound ship recycling. If the Commission's assessment methodology allows the approval of facilities that pose serious risk to coastal ecosystems, workers and surrounding communities, the Regulation's objectives are clearly not met. Beaching, the dominant shipbreaking method in South Asia, is not allowed in the EU [1]. This method involves dismantling vessels directly on tidal mudflats without any infrastructure to contain pollutants. Debris and toxic contaminants, such as oil, fuel, and liquid chemical residues, land directly in the seawater, largely contributing to the degradation of ecosystems [2]. 

"None of the beaching yards would be allowed to clone their operations on a tidal mudflat in the EU. Their inclusion on the EU List will set a chilling double standard and seriously undermine the EU's own ship recycling sector."
Ingvild Jenssen - Executive Director and Founder - NGO Shipbreaking Platform

Recent incidents reinforce these concerns. In June 2026, a heavy fuel spill occurred at the Priya Blue shipbreaking yard, contaminating vast parts of the Gujarati coast. The spill was visible 10 kilometres from the yard. Despite claims of immediate response, the incident demonstrates fundamental inability to contain pollutants when dismantling occurs on tidal mudflats. 

 

These operations violate coastal regulation zone boundaries, and while Indian courts have generally pursued regulation over prohibition, environmental groups argue this framework remains insufficient to ensure safe and environmentally sound practices given the inherent ecological and health risks linked to beaching [3]. 

 

The EU and its Member States are furthermore signatories to the Basel Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous waste, a category that includes end-of-life ships. The Convention's goal is to prevent the dumping of hazardous waste in countries that lack adequate capacity to manage it safely. The Basel Ban Amendment specifically prohibits hazardous waste trade from OECD to non-OECD countries.

"While the EU has a responsibility to ensure that it does not export harm to third countries, the standards of the EU SRR cannot change based on the location. Every yard on the EU List should be subject to the same rules and procedures. If not, compliant yards in the EU will continue to face unfair competition. We urge the EU to close the door on harmful practices that would never be allowed in the European Union’s territory and put a stop to the shipping industry’s exploitation of weaker environmental and OHS standards."
Ingvild Jenssen - Executive Director and Founder - NGO Shipbreaking Platform

Join us and call on the European Commission to: 

 

- Remove the Indian beaching facilities from the proposed list as they do not ensure safe and environmentally sound recycling of vessels; 

- Ensure consistency with the Basel Convention's obligations on hazardous waste trade; 

- Apply uniform standards across all listed facilities regardless of geographic location – the standards cannot change based on the location; 

- Prioritise the EU SRR's core objectives of environmental protection, worker safety. 

 

The consultation on the EU List is open until 30 August. NGO Shipbreaking Platform is currently thoroughly reviewing the inspection reports from the beaching yards. We urge all stakeholders that share our commitment to environmental justice to contribute to the consultation.

 

The EU List should serve as a benchmark for best practices, not as a tool that legitimises greenwashing. Beaches and tidal mudflats, regardless of location, are not acceptable areas to recycle ships. 

 

NOTES

 

[1] Beaching per se is not explicitly prohibited in the EU Ship Recycling Regulation. However, Article 13(1) of the Regulation states that safe and environmentally sound management of ship recycling includes handling of hazardous materials, and of waste generated during the ship recycling process, only on impermeable floors with effective drainage systems. Beaching a vessel on an intertidal mudflat, where pollution incidents such as an oil spill cannot be effectively contained, is therefore incompatible with this requirement. 

 

[2] The EU site inspection reports from Alang-Sosiya record pollution and debris in the yards and their surrounding area. Similarly, inspections in Aliağa, Turkey, found debris left in the foreshore and water. Recent studies confirm persistent contamination of Alang's seawater and sediments with heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, PAHs, and other contaminants from fuel leakage, cutting, welding, and paints. Alang-Sosiya sits in the Gulf of Khambhat, a coastal system already characterised by high tides, strong currents, cyclones and river discharge. Mitigation measures, such as concrete floors and drainage channels in the secondary cutting zones, and embankments only partially offset pollution pathways that are inherent to beaching, and since yards share a single tidal cluster, no plot's performance can be assessed in complete isolation. 

 

[3] Indian shipbreaking yards operate under a built-in regulatory exemption. Although the sector legally requires EIA and Coastal Regulation Zone clearance, it's been exempted from both since operations predate those regulations. Oversight is weak by the regulator's own admission, the Gujarat Pollution Control Board's 2022 audit by India's Comptroller and Auditor General found chronic understaffing, weak technical capacity, and poor transparency undermining its function. In 2025 the GPCB furthermore downgraded shipbreaking's pollution classification from Red to Orange despite acknowledging the sector releases hazardous materials, stretching permits from 5 to 10 years and halving inspections. Yards also remain legally entitled to resell recovered asbestos, while downstream treatment capacity is already exhausted, with no wastewater management capacity and standard for the sector.

Press Release – IndustriALL Europe and NGO Shipbreaking Platform call for a robust European Industrial Maritime Strategy for sustainable Ship Recycling and quality jobs

Posted on by Nicola Mulinaris

IndustriALL Europe and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform issued a joint statement calling on the European Commission to adopt a robust European Industrial Maritime Strategy that places safe and circular ship recycling at the heart of Europe’s maritime manufacturing sector, and acknowledges its strategic importance. 

Ship recycling is a high-skill and labour-intensive activity that could positively contribute to Europe’s circular economy and decarbonisation efforts. Yet, even though around 35% of the global fleet is EU/EFTA-owned, only 1% of these are recycled in EU-approved ship recycling facilities. This represents a large missed opportunity as valuable materials from end-of-life ships, predominantly steel, are lost to foreign markets. In addition, quality jobs in the European industry are threatened due to the unfair competition. 

Since a surge in the number of end-of-life ships to be dismantled is expected in the next decade, the EU must be ready to accommodate this by creating a tailored policy environment. Studies estimate that up to 12 Mt of scrap steel from EoL vessels could be yielded per year, which, in current numbers, would cover approximately 20% of Europe’s scrap steel use. 

"Europe must stop treating ship recycling as mere waste management. The EU Industrial Maritime Strategy is a unique chance to anchor ship recycling as a strategic, circular, and socially responsible activity. It should combine high environmental standards with quality jobs, strong health and safety protections, and long-term skills development. This is not just about sustainability—it’s about securing Europe’s industrial future. Ship recycling can become a pillar of decarbonisation and industrial resilience."
Isabelle Barthès - Deputy Secretary General - IndustriALL Europe

In order to secure secondary raw materials, reinforce industrial autonomy, and create decent jobs across the maritime value chain, the organisations propose concrete policy measures to be clearly embedded in the upcoming Industrial Maritime Strategy: 

- recognise ship recycling as a strategic maritime industry essential for climate, circular economy, and raw materials security and autonomy,  

- close loopholes in the EU Ship Recycling Regulation and the Waste Shipment Regulation that allow ship owners to circumvent obligations and export hazardous waste to third countries, namely by including Beneficial Ownership of vessels, 

- embed strong social conditionality in public funding and industrial support to ensure that ship recycling contributes not only to environmental objectives, but also to high quality industrial employment and long-term skills retention in Europe, 

- prepare for the anticipated wave of end-of-life vessels to be dismantled by supporting the EU ship recycling sector, ensuring safe and environmentally sound recycling of vessels, 

- support creation of jobs in the ship recycling sector, which could revitalise EU regions affected by the decline in shipbuilding sector, on certain conditions: maintaining high occupational health and safety standards in the sector, promoting job stability, including fair and stable contracts for workers, and contributing to skills development in the field, 

- continue supporting innovative projects, such as Oppsirk or CirclesOfLife, that could be scaled up with tailored policy support, and further contribute to EU’s industrial autonomy and resilience. 

"As the number of vessels heading for dismantling is set to increase fivefold in the coming decade, ship recycling cannot be the blind spot of the EU’s Industrial Maritime Strategy. Strengthening European ship-recycling capacities can play a crucial role in enhancing the sector’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy (today, only 1% of EU-EFTA-owned ships are recycled in the EU) while directly contributing to the European Union’s circular economy and decarbonisation objectives. The European Commission cannot miss this opportunity to send a strong signal to the sector, investors and policymakers."
Philippine Bernard - Policy Officer - NGO Shipbreaking Platform

In July last year, NGO Shipbreaking Platform provided feedback to the consultation on the Strategy, where a need for tailored policy support for the EU ship recycling sector was identified. Without decisive EU policy, Europe will continue to lose valuable secondary raw materials to foreign markets, weaken its industrial base, and miss a pivotal chance to create sustainable, high skill jobs. By acting now, the EU can turn ship recycling into a cornerstone of its industrial resilience, climate ambition and social equity.

Press Release – European Commission launches consultation on the 15th update of the EU-approved ship recycling facilities list

Posted on by Nicola Mulinaris

The European Commission launched its long-awaited consultation on the 15th update of the European List of ship recycling facilities. As the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, we call on the EU to remove all Turkish ship recycling facilities that use the landing method, support the non-inclusion of Indian ‘beaching’ yards, and urge the EU to support capacity development in line with the circularity and decarbonisation objectives.

We welcome the decision to remove the Dörtel ship recycling yard in Aliağa, Turkey. An inspection carried out by the Commission revealed that a ship was being dismantled while still being partially in the water, and the facility was not equipped with an impermeable floor and a slag collector. This could with a high probability lead to contamination of seawater - the main requirements for proper hazardous waste collection and treatment were therefore not met. Therefore, the removal of this facility from the list was indispensable. Although the decision to remove the the Dörtel ship recycling yard in Aliağa, Turkey is a step in the right direction, we find it insufficient.

"Approving yards in third countries that would never be allowed to operate in the EU creates a double standard that undermines not only recyclers that have already invested in truly sustainable methods, but also efforts to improve and scale practices to an acceptable level globally."
Ingvild Jenssen - Executive Director and Founder - NGO Shipbreaking Platform

Dangerous conditions in Turkish yards continue to reap their toll. In November this year, another worked died when tons of ship scrap fell on him, killing him instantly. This happened at the Temurtaşlar yard, which is an EU-approved facility.

Whereas several Indian yards – where ships are cut on unprotected tidal mudflats – have applied to be included on the European list, and were audited by the European Commission in late 2024, none have been proposed to be added to its most recent edition.

Beaching - the current method used by the Indian yards - does not provide full containment of pollutants; it is not allowed in the EU, explicitly banned in China and the UAE, and has even been identified as a method that needs to be replaced by drydocks by the Indian government in its Maritime India Vision 2030.

In their position submitted to the Commission, the European Shipowners (ESCA) states that the facilities on the EU list have very limited capacities, and their ship recycling activities are predominantly limited to small, often inland-sail vessels. Furthermore, the association complains that Indian ship recycling yards are again not included in the proposed new list.

"Instead of lamenting the exclusion of beaching yards, claiming that they have no other options, ship owners should play an active role in building the needed capacity to sustainably recycle their assets. There is no better time than now to establish cross sectoral synergies with both steel and construction sectors to boost circularity and ensure the availability of industrial platforms to dismantle all types of vessels."
Ingvild Jenssen - Executive Director and Founder - NGO Shipbreaking Platform

Even though it is true that the EU-located facilities recycle smaller vessels, this is not due to the fact of their limitations in terms of size and technical capacities, but to the lack of stable inflow of ships to recycle. Considering the marine cargo sector’s record profits, we find their lack of willingness to contribute to the capacity building in the EU unjustifiable. The top 9 shipping companies’ profits rose in the 3rd quarter of 2025 to more than $4.3 billion in operating profit (EBITDA).

So far, only a handful of ship owners, including Hoegh, Hapag Lloyd, CMA-CGM and Petrobras, are taking action to build a better future for ship recycling. The vast majority continue to circumvent international environmental laws with ease, and even lobby for the weakening of standards as illustrated by the ECSA’s submission.

The Commission is furthermore urged to lead by example and enhance capacity in the EU to recycle the many ships that will head for scrap in the coming years. As outlined in the NGO Shipbreaking Platform’s recent report, enhancing domestic capacity for ship recycling provides a strategic opportunity for the EU to secure a steady supply of high quality secondary scrap for the decarbonisation of the steel and construction sectors, and provides coherence with EU environmental policies aimed at preventing the export of hazardous materials from the EU.

It is high time that the EU takes effective steps to at least hold its own shipping sector to account. The best way to do that is to apply its legislation to the real owners of ships and close legal loopholes made available when relying on the flag or location of the ship. Importantly, EU Member States now have to signal whether they will continue to succumb to pressure from ship owners that seek to avoid accountability or support the development of green jobs and circular hubs that will benefit European steel and construction sectors and reward responsible ship owners.