Jul-Aug 2008

Coffin Ship:Toxic Graveyards Exposed

PHOTOS courtesy Greenpeace/Engel

Rust buckets, ships of shame, coffin ships - those that do not take seafarers to a watery grave, end up on fetid beaches like in Alang, India, where the exploitation of labour & the pollution of our marine environment continues ashore; where 35,000 men, women and children labour by hand, stripping a vessel's carcass back to its iron skeleton and asbestos guts...

ITF joins Greenpeace campaign

It is here that the giant metal beasts which plague the world's oceans unload their last deadly cargo of toxic wastes...

The rusting monoliths are beached during full moon tides. Thousands of the poorest of the poor swarm over the toxic monsters to carry out one of the most hazardous jobs in the world.

Protected only by scarves and light shoes, without dry docks or heavy lifting equipment, the men women and children rip it apart. The lucky ones have hand held cutting torches, the rest use hammers, saws and chisels.
Deadly blue asbestos is stripped and collected by workers with their bare hands; there is no protective breathing apparatus and no escape from the toxic fumes.

Now international unions have joined forces with green groups in a campaign to protect workers health and safety and safeguard the environment.

Under attack are ships contaminated with toxic and hazardous materials headed for breaking up on the coast of India and other Asian countries.

The International Transport Workers' Federation and the International Metalworkers Federation announced they were prepared to join forces with Non Government Organisations (NGO's) such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Basel Action Network to put a stop to the horrendous conditions imposed on ship-breaking workers in third world nations and to ban toxic ships.

The campaign also aims to ensure that adequate measures are put in place to guarantee the environment isn't degraded during the ship-breaking process.

The new deal with NGO's was announced as environmental activists escorted the Encounter Bay into Singapore harbour in mid-January. The ship is contaminated with high levels of toxic and hazardous materials. Singapore became the fifth city where environmentalists protested against the ship which was on its final journey before being scrapped.
The Encounter Bay was sold by the Dutch/UK company P&O Nedlloyd en route to Singapore. Heavy metals and asbestos form part of its contamination. It's due to go to ship-breakers in China where the toxic materials will pollute the environment and endanger the health of workers during the scrapping process.

A Pulitzer Prize winning article in the US newspaper The Baltimore Sun quoted one shipbreaking worker in Alang: "It is better to work and die, than starve and die."

There is no escape. People finish work and return home to Alang's filthy shanty city, plagued by frequent and often fatal disease. Asbestos, lead cadmium, arsenic and dioxins contaminate the ground in their living areas and adjacent agricultural areas along the coast. Toxic substances end up in the sea, in the sensitive intertidal zone.

The action by P&O Nedlloyd clearly contravenes the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. The Convention regulates the export of toxic materials, particularly to the developing world, and came into force in 1992.

ITF-Australia coordinator Trevor Charles said the two world unions were dedicated to supporting workers world-wide to establish acceptable safety, health and environmental standards and would be providing all possible assistance to unions in the Asian countries involved in ship-scrapping.

"Seafarers, dock workers, shipyard and ship-breaking workers all have a right to expect that the shipping industry will run on a sustainable basis, which includes a rational scrapping and building policy," he said.

The unions are insisting that ships for scrap exported to Asia should be free of hazardous substances including asbestos, lead and other heavy metal compounds, oily wastes and polychlorinated biphenyl.

"But in the short-term, a special decontamination squad of skilled professionals must be set up to assist in the total decontamination of ships upon arrival in Asia," Charles said.

"All hazardous material removed should then be containerised and re-exported to the original owners, at their expense, for appropriate disposal."

Charles said the ITF and environmental groups also wanted the setting up of an independent monitoring team consisting of trade union representatives with expertise in labour law and occupational safety, citizens environmental groups and Governments.

They are also insisting that the responsibility for rendering ships non-hazardous before sale for scrapping should fall on ship owners and not be passed on to Asian authorities.

"Ship-breaking in Asia must take place with adequate measures to ensure that the environment isn't degraded and the health and livelihoods of nearby communities aren't put at risk," Trevor Charles said.

"Ship breaking workers must be given adequate workplace protection and the conditions of work must be significantly improved to minimise the risk of occupational injury and disease to the workers."

Charles said that the ITF and environmental NGO's would support each other to protect both the environment and workers facing environmental hazards.

They would be working to achieve the registration of all workers at ship-breaking sites in Asia, particularly important because child labour is being used at some sites and the workers health needs to be monitored because of the toxic involved in some cases.

"We will also be seeking the provision of living quarters with hygienic sanitary facilities in an uncontaminated area in the vicinity of the ship-breaking site for all ship-breaking workers," said Charles.

Coffin Ship:Toxic Graveyards Exposed

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