European Commission Archives - NGO Shipbreaking Platform

The decision to allow beaching yards on the EU List would undermine responsible ship recyclers who made significant investments to meet high environmental, health, safety, and labour standards, and would expose them to unfair competition from substandard facilities. It runs against the EU Industrial Maritime Strategy and Clean Industrial Deal, which call for expanding European ship recycling capacity and securing material strategic autonomy. Most critically, it greenlights the exports of hazardous waste to countries lacking equivalent protections, a practice at odds with the EU Waste Shipment Regulation and the Basel Ban Amendment.

The demands from the signing parties are clear:

- Do not approve beaching facilities on the EU List;

- Further develop the technical guidance not approving the beaching method under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation;

- Lead international advocacy for a global beaching ban at the International Maritime Organisation level;

- Close legal loopholes enabling the re-flagging of vessels and ensure that all EU-owned vessels are recycle in line with the EU standards;

- Implement concrete measures to expand European ship recycling capacity in line with the best available practices.

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].

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.

Tag: European Commission

Press Release – Industrial associations, trade unions and NGOs urge the European Commission not to greenlight beaching yards

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

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.