Monday, February 02, 2009
World to dump 'toxic ships' on Britain
Monday, 02 February 2009
Britain is to become a dumping ground for the world’s “toxic ships” after the (EA) granted permission for the break-up of a notorious contaminated vessel. The French aircraft carrier Le Clemenceau, which has been turned away from docks in India, Turkey and Greece, will be tugged to Hartlepool on Teesside this week after the EA approved the scrapping of large numbers of contaminated ships at a purpose-built dock.
The vessel, which is laden with asbestos, mercury and PCBs, will join four second world war-era American warships that have been moored there since 2003 waiting for permission to be broken up and sold for scrap.
The decision by the EA will infuriate environmentalists who have been fighting a legal battle to prevent Able UK, the company awarded the contract, from breaking up the ships. They argue that the process will release asbestos and toxic chemicals into an area already blighted by some of the highest asbestos-related cancer rates in the country.
However, the EA and the Health and Safety Executive say that careful management of asbestos and the use of a sealed dry dock to prevent chemicals leaking into the water system will ensure the facility is safe.
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, pressed for permission for the expansion of the ship recycling industry in Hartlepool when he served there as MP, arguing that it would create hundreds of jobs.
For years, western navies and shipping firms have quietly disposed of their retired fleets in docks in India where they are often stripped for scrap by women and children under appalling conditions.
A spokesman for the EA said that providing facilities to recycle vessels safely in the UK would “reduce environmental damage caused by scrapping ships in the third world”.
The £9m deal to recycle the Clemenceau in Teesside marks the end of a decade-long search for a country willing to accept the contaminated vessel.
In 2006, Jacques Chirac, the then president of France, was forced to order the 27,000-tonne warship to return home after India barred it from entering its waters. It has been waiting in Brest, northern France, ever since.
Peter Stephenson, chairman of Able UK, said the company’s facilities would provide the West with a “sustainable alternative” to the subcontinent’s shipyards.
“What happens in India is horrific,” said Stephenson. “Hopefully there will be increasing pressure for people to do the job properly here, even if the price is four times higher.”
In 2003 the US navy sent four warships to Able to be broken up, but they became enmeshed in a legal limbo, and could not be dismantled for scrap.
To satisfy environmental standards imposed by the EA, Able has built the world’s largest dry dock on the Tees to prevent the leakage of toxic chemicals.
The facility - which can recycle up to 30 ships a year - will provide an initial 200 new jobs for workers in an area once famous for ship building. The Friends of Hartlepool, a local community group, supported legal challenges against the company, arguing that the area “has already disproportionately suffered the ill-effects of polluting industries”.
Stephenson dismisses their fears as “scaremongering”, saying most local people are happy to have the jobs.
“Hartlepool used to be one of the greatest shipbuilders in world. We were proud to build them, now we’re proud to recycle them.” Belfast and Liverpool have similar licences but operate smaller facilities.
With 200 single-hulled oil tankers needing to be disposed of by 2015, the global market for ship-breaking is estimated to be worth up to £3 billion.
Source: Times Online
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