As living things age and wither, so do the non-living things. Ships are no exception. The old ships that are not operational anymore are sent for breaking. During the third quarter of 2015, 166 vessels were sold for breaking to India (38), Bangladesh (26) and Pakistan (14). The data from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform shows a downturn within the ship-breaking sector.
The ships sent for breaking belonged to the European shipowners (15), Greece (9), Norway (1), Germany (3) and Italy (2).
The companies that sell ships for breaking have profit as their priority over the environment and workers’ rights. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform and the European Environmental Bureau and the 160 plus environmental, human and labour rights organisations they represent, together with two Polish NGOs sent letters to erring companies to change their bad practices of selling against the new EU Ship Recycling Regulation, which will out-rule the use of substandard beaching yards to dismantle EU-flagged vessels.
Chinese ship owners sold four ships to South Asian yards, and one Turkish company sent one of its ships to Alang yards.
Source: NGO Shipbreaking Platform
