European association calls for EU to expand the number of approved ship recycling facilities

The European Community Shipowners’ Association (ECSA) is calling for the European Commission to expand its recently published list of EU-approved ship recycling facilities to include more facilities in the developing world.

According to the ECSA, the initial list of acceptable facilities only featured yards in Europe and reaches less than 30% of the EU’s own recycling capacity target.

The ECSA claims that the lack of any ship recycling yards outside of Europe should get EU recognition to raise standards worldwide and respond to demand.

The first edition of the European list includes 18 European recycling yards that are deemed safe for workers and environmentally sound in accordance with the relevant requirements of the 2013 EU Ship Recycling Regulation.

The EC has received applications from recycling yards in countries outside Europe as well, and those applications are being reviewed. Site inspections will be conducted to check their credentials followed by a decision in 2017 on their inclusion in the list.

“Whilst the EU list can serve to raise ship recycling standards worldwide and respond to recycling demand, the current list clearly shows the need to include third country yards, especially those that already meet the international standards laid down in the Hong Kong Convention for safe and environmentally sound ship recycling,” says Patrick Verhoeven, ECSA secretary general.

The ECSA notes that the IMO Hong Kong Convention has already a profound impact on the ground as recycling yards have acted to comply with its measures, even when the convention itself is not yet in force. This is notably the case for several yards in Alang, India.

Giving these yards EU recognition will encourage others to raise their standards and apply for inclusion as well, ECSA says. It will furthermore ensure sufficient and adequate capacity on the EU list, not just in terms of volume, but also in terms of the size of ships that can be dismantled. In turn, this will facilitate a swift entry into force of the Hong Kong Convention, creating a flag neutral level playing field in the global ship recycling market.

“Approximately 150 container vessels were sent for recycling in 2016, the current EU list would cater for only 16 smaller container vessels, taking into consideration limitation of EU yards in terms of length and vessel draft. And that is just for one type of vessels. We thus strongly encourage the commission to enlarge the list to non-EU facilities as soon as possible,” Verhoeven adds.

All vessels sailing under an EU flag eventually will be required to use an approved ship recycling facility, once the EU Ship Recycling Regulation effectively applies. This will be six months after the date that the combined maximum annual ship recycling output of the ship recycling facilities included in the European list constitutes not less than 2.5 million light displacement tonnes or 31 December 2018, whichever date occurs first.