The global coalition of organisations NGO Shipbreaking Platform has published its 2024 annual list of ships dismantled worldwide. The data reveals that 80% of the global tonnage scrapped last year was broken under substandard conditions on the beaches of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.
As it is reported, 409 ships were dismantled globally in 2024, of which 255 ended up in South Asian yards.
Bangladesh remains the shipping industry’s first choice for scrapping “despite grave consequences,” as NGO Shipbreaking Platform claims, “for workers, local communities and fragile coastal ecosystems.”
Nine workers lost their lives dismantling ships in South Asia in 2024, with another 45 workers injured due to unsafe working practices.
Meanwhile, China tops the 2024 Dumpers List -as in 2023- with more than fifty Chinese vessels sold to South Asian shipbreakers, mainly in Bangladesh.
“This comes despite China’s ban on the import of waste and the country’s own capacity to recycle ships in dry-dock facilities. Indeed, beaching is forbidden in China,” says the NGO Shipbreaking Platform in its report, adding that more than a dozen vessels were also beached by shipping companies headquartered in Russia, Switzerland, the Philippines, and South Korea.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform now urges the EU to strengthen its EU Ship Recycling Regulation with new proposals.
“As parts of the shipping industry are keen to see beaching yards rubber-stamped by the weak Hong Kong Convention that will enter into force in June this year, the European Union is still to reveal proposals for strengthening its EU Ship Recycling Regulation.”
Ingvild Jenssen, executive director and founder, NGO Shipbreaking Platform said: “The Basel Convention recommended the phasing out of the beaching method 20 years ago and calls for full containment of pollutants and their environmentally sound management all the way to disposal.
“It also regulates, even bans in some cases, the international trade of hazardous wastes with an eye to protecting vulnerable communities and environments. We strongly encourage enforcement authorities globally to take actions that will effectively hold the shipping sector liable for committing serious environmental crimes and call on policy makers to safeguard the environmental justice principles that are at the heart of the Basel Convention.”
