Greenpeace calls for a sustainable policy on clean ship breaking

New Delhi, May 18 (UNI) Even as the decommissioned aircraft carrier Clemenceau arrives back in Brest, France, environment watchdog Greenpeace has urged India to formulate a national sustainable policy on clean ship breaking.

''Concerns in India continue to spiral... It is a national shame that in spite of all the evidence, India is yet to start a discussion on formulating a national sustainable policy on clean ship breaking,'' the NGO said in a statement here.

There was an urgency for the Indian government to learn from recent events and adhere to the Basel convention to which it was a signatory and also to observe the Supreme Court order of October 2003 on ship breaking in letter and spirit, said Greenpeace representative Ramapati Kumar.

It must be noted that the European Union has banned the export of hazardous wastes to developing countries but has so far failed to create a solution for proper pre-cleaning in Europe.

The NGO praised the French government for taking the first step towards European responsibility for its toxic old commercial and government ships. However, they also warned that Europe still lacked any kind of real solution for its growing ship scrapping crisis and must therefore immediately find the means to develop capacity for decontaminating and dismantling obsolete vessels.

It found some hope in recent statements by the European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. During the April 25, 2006 open hearing on ship breaking in the European Parliament, Mr Dimas announced that the EU was prepared to act on ship breaking as a matter of urgency in advance of the development of rules agreed through the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

He also noted that a comprehensive EU strategy, which might call for mandatory EU rules on ship breaking.

Many more vessels besides the Clemenceau would have to be decontaminated in European countries before export for dismantling in South Asia very soon.

According to a EU study on the consequences of the global ban on single hull oil tankers over 2,200 tankers would have to be broken within ten years.

The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) had prevented the SS Norway from entering into Indian waters on a temporary basis following a PIL filed in the apex court.

''We are concerned with the piece meal approach on ship breaking which demonstrates a lack of vision and leaves undesirable room for discretion and manipulation,'' said Mr Gopal Krishna from Ban Asbestos Network India.

The Chairman of the Indian government's newly-formed technical committee on shipbreaking was also a respondent in a case on hazardous waste, pending since 1997, on behalf of the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) of which he was the Secretary. The acts of omission and commission by the Ministry were the subject matter of the case, he added.

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