with bare hands Archives - NGO Shipbreaking Platform

Platform News – SAVE THE DATE: Ship Recycling Lab on 20-21 September in Rotterdam

Posted on April 26, 2022April 26, 2022 by Nicola Mulinaris

Recognising the need for visionary solutions for ship recycling, we are hosting our first Ship Recycling Lab: Transformation through Innovation on 20-21 September 2022 in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

The event will bring together forward-thinking stakeholders from the maritime, recycling and steel sectors, financial institutions and policy makers to showcase and exchange ideas for best practices and strategies for ship demolition, design, waste management and material recovery in line with ethical circular policy goals.

Providing visibility to companies that have developed solutions, including innovative cutting techniques, new state-of-the-art waste handling procedures, cradle to cradle concept design, and clean steel breakthrough technologies aimed at achieving a zero-carbon steel making process, the Lab intends to set the bar for tomorrow’s ship recycling.

Come join us and 200+ progressive stakeholders for networking opportunities, inspiring keynote speaker sessions, thought-provoking presentations, interactive panel discussions, a photo exhibition from Bangladesh and a live performance at the iconic Kunsthal museum in the shipping hub of Rotterdam in September!

Register and buy your tickets now at www.shiprecyclinglab.org to get a €200 Early Bird Discount.

Platform News – SAVE THE DATE: “With Bare Hands” on 3 October 2019 in Brussels

Posted on September 11, 2019January 14, 2022 by admin_ec

Want to learn more about where our toxic waste ends up? What efforts are being made to stop it from causing harm to communities and the environment in the Global South?

MO* Magazine, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform and its member organisation FIDH are organising a debate at the iconic Beursschouwburg in Brussels on 3 October.

Come listen to, amongst others, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Toxics, Baskut Tuncak; Goldman Prize winner and Bangladesh Supreme Court lawyer, Syeda Rizwana Hasan; Belgian Federal Police; and Members of the European Parliament talk about ways to prevent toxic trade.

The debate will be followed by the performance With Bare Hands (Live): Life in Bangladesh's Shipbreaking Yards, written by Isacco Chiaf, Sharanya Deepak, Serenella Martufi and Caroline Massie.

Due to the limited number of seats available, the registration is mandatory. Participants can register here.

Background

After a slew of toxic trade disasters in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the international community rallied together to reject the free trade of hazardous materials, prompting the adoption of international treaties that aim at regulating transboundary waste flows. The laws are however easy to circumvent and the developed world’s waste still finds its way to developing counties for cheap and unsafe disposal. The impact of toxic waste dumping in these counties is devastating and severely harms both human health and the environment.

Electronic waste (e-waste) and end-of-life ships are amongst the most devastating toxic waste streams globally. The debate, which is part of the festival Quinzaine de la Solidarité Internationale - Veertiendaagse Internationale Solidariteit 2019, will address the global impact caused by the dumping of hazardous waste, focusing particularly on these two waste flows.

Practical info

Event Timing: 3 October 2019, 17:30 - 20:30

Event Address: Beursschouwburg - Goudenzaal, Rue Auguste Orts 20-28, 1000 Brussels

Platform News – Performance With Bare Hands (Live) in Brussels

Posted on June 17, 2019June 17, 2019 by admin_ec

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform invites you to attend the artistic performance With Bare Hands (Live) on Friday 21 June in Brussels (Belgium).

With Bare Hands (Live) is a show in which live music, video, and the testimonies of the people directly affected by the most dangerous industry in the world are combined to create a unique narrative experience. The audience will visit the shipbreaking beaches of South Asia, one of the deadliest and most polluted places on earth.

The vast majority of world's end-of-life ships are broken down on the shores of South Asia. On the one hand, workers, often exploited migrants, lose their lives and suffer injuries and occupational diseases due to unsafe working conditions and exposure to toxic substances. On the other hand, coastal ecosystems and the local communities depending on them are devastated by toxic spills and other types of pollution.

With Bare Hands (Live) will give the web-documentary With Bare Hands, created by photojournalist Tomaso Clavarino and video maker Isacco Chiaf in 2016, a new dimension.

The event is organised in collaboration with LaVallée, a project developed by Smart Belgique.

Platform News – Problems of shipbreaking presented at the 2018 Vicino/Lontano Festival

Posted on May 18, 2018January 14, 2022 by admin_ec

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform is grateful to have participated in the 2018 Vicino/Lontano Festival, which was held from 10 May to 13 May in Udine, Italy.

The Vicino/Lontano Festival has, since its very beginning, been closely linked to the figure of journalist and writer Tiziano Terzani, to whose memory the Festival’s annual literary prize is dedicated. It encompasses a broad range of initiatives and events, including debates, discussion forums, seminars, lectures, exhibitions, performances and screenings. Scholars, journalists, writers and artists of international renown gather together to analyze the economic, social, cultural, and geopolitical trends currently impacting our globalized world, and, in the process, attempt to reach a better understanding of the forces and mechanisms driving global change and how these are likely to shape future realities.

The photo exhibition ‘With Bare Hands – The human and environmental costs of shipbreaking’, an extract from a web documentary done by Tomaso Clavarino and Isacco Chiaf, was the Platform’s entry to this year’s festival edition that focused on global inequalities. In 2016, Clavarino, journalist and photographer, and Chiaf, video maker and graphic designer, travelled to Bangladesh and India, where dirty and dangerous scrapping is conducted on the tidal beaches of Chittagong and Alang. With texts, infographics, videos, photo-essays, interviews and maps, they have been able to show how shipbreaking activities are contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem and negatively affecting the lives of thousands of people.

The official inauguration of the exhibition took place on 11 May at the gallery MAKE. With the presence of Vicino/Lontano’s vice-president and the City Councillor responsible for culture, Clavarino and Nicola Mulinaris, the Platform’s communication officer, introduced the audience to the topic of shipbreaking, highlighting its international dimension and negative impacts.

“What impressed me the most during the days spent in Bangladesh and India, besides the extremely inhuman working conditions and evident pollution, was the difficulty to access this industry. That journalists and photographers are not welcome was clearly communicated. We still managed to penetrate this extremely closed industry – and the devastating stories we documented cannot be ignored”, said Tomaso Clavarino.

In the last two years, With Bare Hands, which was funded by the European Journalism Centre, has been published in several international media outlets [1]. The Platform, with the support of its member organisation Legambiente and the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, presented the project to the public in the form of photo exhibition also at the European Parliament in Brussels (June 2017) and at RED La Feltrinelli in Rome (January 2018).

With Bare Hands: an immersive journey into the problems of shipbreaking

Posted on January 3, 2018January 15, 2019 by admin_ec

With Bare Hands is the first multimedia and data-driven reporting project that documents the human costs and environmental impacts of shipbreaking in South Asia.

Isacco Chiaf, graphic designer, and Tomaso Clavarino, journalist and photographer, are behind this outstanding work, which was funded by the European Journalism Centre. The two Italians travelled to Bangladesh and India, where dirty and dangerous scrapping is conducted on the tidal beaches of Chittagong and Alang. With texts, infographics, videos, photo-essays, interviews and maps, they have been able to show how shipbreaking activities are contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem and negatively affecting the lives of thousands of people.

The multimedia platform highlights the issues of child labour, environmental pollution and lack of healthy and safe working and living conditions. Maps and graphs, based on the NGO Shipbreaking Platform’s data, focus on the practices of the shipping industry such as the use of flags of convenience and cases of illegal trafficking. Interviews with Patrizia Heidegger, the Platform’s executive director, and Muhammed Ali (Shahin), the Platform’s coordinator in Bangladesh, are also featured.

"What impressed me the most during the days spent in Bangladesh and India, besides the extremely inhuman working conditions and evident pollution, was the difficulty to access this industry. Armed guards were securing the entry to the yards and our every move was tracked. The local police is clearly enmeshed with the ship breakers that don’t want their business practices revealed. That journalists and photographers are not welcome was clearly communicated. We still managed to penetrate this extremely closed industry – and the devastating stories we documented cannot be ignored."

Tomaso Clavarino - Journalist and Photographer

Raising awareness campaign – Lisbon 2023

Posted on December 28, 2017June 28, 2023 by Nicola Mulinaris

In Spring 2023, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform organised in Portugal a series of cultural initiatives aimed at raising awareness on the topic of shipbreaking.

Fifteen powerful images were pasted on selected walls of the city of Lisbon. Via visual storytelling, the project not only showed how the huge metal skeletons of old vessels are still dangerously stripped apart on the shores of the Global South but also opened a window into the lives of the exploited workers and vulnerable local communities, denouncing the illegality of this toxic trade. The Platform also organised two live performances at Largo Residências and at MAD - Marvilla Art District. Live music, visuals and theatre were combined by artists Serenella Martufi and Isacco Chiaf to provide a comprehensive overview of the issue through a unique multimedia format.

Both projects were based on the multimedia work With Bare Hands, created by award-winning photojournalist Tomaso Clavarino and videomaker Isacco Chiaf in 2016.

Platform News – SAVE THE DATE: “Black Gold’s Green Legacy” on 22 and 28 June 2017 in Brussels

Posted on June 8, 2017January 10, 2019 by admin_ec

The European Economic and Social Committee's Consultative Commission on Industrial Change (CCMI) and The European Parliament (EP) are organizing, with the support of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a two-part event to follow-up and consolidate earlier work on shipbreaking and the recycling society.

The event will explore the positive benefits that could accrue to Member States from the increased necessity to recycle the decommissioned floating structures from the oil and gas sector within Europe. This event will determine the response of the key stakeholders, especially the oil and gas industry and the production facility owners, and identify what further action needs to be taken by the EU to ensure that the significant value of the legacy assets contribute to the ongoing industrial base in Europe.

The first part of this event will take place at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on 22 June in Brussels. A dedicated debate looking at the obstacles and opportunities will take place at a meeting of the Consultative Commission on Industrial Change.

The second part of this joint event will be a conference on 28 June in the European Parliament in Brussels. This will define and explore, in conjunction with the European Commission, the necessary legislative action and support that is necessary.

We will take part in these important discussions to make sure the offshore sector’s overcapacity problem is resolved through responsible recycling.

Visit also the photo exhibition “With Bare Hands” showing the dire conditions at the shipbreaking beaches in India and Bangladesh, which will take place at the EP on 26-30 June.

Platform News – ‘With Bare Hands’: an immersive journey into the problems of shipbreaking

Posted on January 25, 2017January 10, 2019 by admin_ec

International media outlets publish 'With bare hands', the first multimedia and data-driven reporting project that documents the negative impacts on the environment and the human costs of shipbreaking in South Asia. Spanish daily newspaper El Pais and international news channel Al Jazeera are the first to make this reporting available.

Isacco Chiaf, graphic designer, and Tomaso Clavarino, journalist and photographer, are behind this outstanding project, which was funded by the European Journalism Centre. The two Italians travelled to Bangladesh and India, where dirty and dangerous scrapping is conducted on the tidal beaches of Chittagong and Alang. With texts, infographics, videos, photo-essays, interviews and maps, they have been able to show how shipbreaking activities are contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem and negatively affecting the lives of thousands of people.