A press event in London is intended to bring attention to unsafe and environmentally unsound ship dismantling practices in India and Bangladesh but also to better practices elsewhere.
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including the Brussels-based NGO Shipbreaking Platform, are holding a press event titled “Immediasea—a Clean Break from the Dirty Work” at The Baltic Exchange Building in London on Sept. 8, 2015.
The event is being billed by its organizers as “an independent and objective forum that will provide the press with the full picture, scope and activities of ship recycling.”
An introduction in emailed invitations to the event say attendees will see both the bad practices and the good at the forum. “Shipbreaking has earned its bad reputation. Ships are reflagged to murky registers before breaking, unscrupulous buyers and brokers cover the trail of ownership and liability, workers die and are injured regularly at primitive breaking yards, and toxins flood the breaking beaches of India and Bangladesh,” according to the introduction.
The bad examples can be countered by good ones, the event organizers say. “On the other side there are yards in Turkey and China where ship recycling is carried out under controlled circumstances, but of course at a higher price, meaning they pay less for scrapped ships. The Norwegian Shipowners' Association has encouraged their members to use these yards and stop all beach breaking, while their Danish counterpart has taken a more moderate stance, seeking to up the standards of the beaching yards and save the thousands of jobs that the activity provides.”
The shipping industry will be represented at the event by representatives from Hamburg, Germany-based DNV GL, Singapore-based Wilhelmsen Ship Management and United States-based GMS Leadership.
More information on the event can be obtained by emailing Christina Dupré Roos of Norwegian public relations firm Blue C at christina@blue-c.no.