Greenpeace letter to Ceres - April 9th 2003

Dear Ms, Mr,

We are writing concerning the "scrapping" of decommissioned ships (also known as "End of Life Vessels") and requesting information about your company's policies concerning this matter. Greenpeace has for some time been working on this issue owing to the considerable environmental and health impacts of current practices.

We have learned that your company has sold the End of Life Vessel Kapetan Hiotis to an Asian scrapyard after Greenpeace has sent you a letter last year. In this letter we asked your company to take full responsibility for the ships that you owned (as a managing or registered owner or operator) once the decision to take it out of service has been taken. The current practice of sending End of Life Vessels not properly decontaminated from hazardous substances and properly made gas-free to Asia/Turkey is not acceptable and is illegal under international law. We already informed your company that at www.greenpeaceweb.org/shipbreak information can be found on the situation at the Asian shipbreaking yards and of the legal obligations under the Basel Convention Regime. We have urged a company representative to sign a declaration committing your company to find a solution to the dumping of toxic substances on Asian/Turkish beaches.

In the declaration we have asked your company to:

1. Ensure that all of its ships will have an inventory of all hazardous materials on board;
2. Ensure it decontaminates any of its ships-for-scrap prior to sending them to a non-OECD country;
3. Deliver ships to breaking yards anywhere in the world in a gasfree condition, with tanks cleaned and certified fit for hot work and entry standards;
4. Ensure that any of its ships for scrap will undergo proper de-ballasting before breaking of the ship;
5. Make its ships in operation progressively cleaner, by systematically replacing hazardous substances during maintenance, repair, refitting and rebuilding programmes for clean and safe alternatives, and;
6. Ensure that any new ships ordered by it will be built within the principles of environmental design to ensure the replacement of hazardous materials by safer alternatives as well as easy-to-dismantle standards.

And finally, that your company at anytime will disclose information regarding the fate of its ships (shipbreaking yard, broker etc.) and make sure that its ships will not be sold to companies that do not implement the principles of this declaration.

We have not received any answer from your company.

Therefore we have to assume that your company has not taken the necessary steps for the decontamination of the End of Life Vessel Kapetan Hiotis to prevent damage to the environment and the workers in Asia. If your company has, please confirm this urgently.

Despite serious public concern for the environment and for workers' health, it seems your company is prepared to continue business as usual. In sending End of Life Vessels not properly decontaminated from hazardous materials to Asia/Turkey your company has taken actions that are in breach of international (and in some cases regional and national) law. The Basel Convention regulates the international trade in hazardous waste between countries. Several ship cases over the last years (such as Forthbank, Sea Beirut, Sandrien and Silver Ray,... - see Greenpeace website) have established that the relevant provisions of the Basel Convention are applicable to End of Life Vessels. In the case of the chemical tanker Sandrien, for example, the Highest Administrative court in the Netherlands has declared that an End of Life Vessel is a hazardous waste. In the case of the Silver Ray, the Belgium authorities have by legal means prevented the intended escape of the toxic ship to Asian beaches.

The Basel Convention Regime requires that, at minimum, your company notifies all competent authorities on the intent to dispose of or recover and to export the End of Life Vessel and asks for permission accordingly. The Basel Ban from 1995 prohibits the export of hazardous waste for any reason, including recycling, from developed (OECD) to developing (non-OECD) countries.

Decontamination prior to export is obligatory under that Basel Convention Regime. Illegal transports are considered as criminal and must be returned to sender. Based on this Basel Convention Regime Turkish courts, for example, recently decided that the Minister of Environment took the right decision when it ordered the End of Life Vessel Sea Beirut which was contaminated with asbestos should be sent back to the country of origin.

cAs you might know, the liabilities regarding asbestos are internationally progressed. This is due to the fact that the fatal effects of exposure to asbestos fibres are widely known. In many countries citizens have successfully taken court proceedings. There is a growing and extensive jurisprudence on the huge accountability of asbestos polluters (e.g. the DOW 2.2 billion dollar award from asbestos liabilities from Union Carbide). If despite widely known effects on the damaging effects of asbestos, your company has sent End of Life Vessels with asbestos on board to countries where workers do not have the possibilities to remove and dispose of this deadly substance safely, how will you explain that to the public, to the international community and/or to the courts?

Greenpeace has several times asked your company to take part in the solution. By letter we have urged your company to take the necessary measures before sending End of Life Vessels to Asia, and we have called upon your company to sign a declaration. By not taking this positive action your company appears to be trying to avoid the undisputable responsibility of the shipping industry for their End of Life Vessels and to be obstructing the development of an international regime, under negotiation in different UN bodies, that enforces that responsibility.

With this letter, Greenpeace urges your company to actively and explicitly take part in the real solution by properly decontaminating all End of Life Vessels and by supporting a global and mandatory shipbreaking regime. Greenpeace will actively monitor the situation with regard to your vessels as they approach their "End of Life". We may make the information which we have gathered publicly known if and as we consider necessary. In doing so we will take into account written confirmation by your company that it is interested in the problem and the solution. If needed we will consider taking steps that ensure the enforcement of your company's liability for the damaging effects of hazardous materials originating from its operated ships during the breaking of the ships.

In case your company has overlooked the matter, we again enclose a copy of the declaration for your company to sign. We request you for an acknowledgement of receipt of the letter and to respond to our question before the 17th of April. If desired we can also discuss the matter face-to-face.

Yours sincerely,

Nikos Charalambides, Executive Director, Greenpeace Greece
Marietta Harjono, Coördinator international shipbreaking campaign, Greenpeace Netherlands