News

United States are planning to send first toxic navy ships to the UK

25 september 2003 - The UK has agreed to a plan of the United States to send toxic old navy ships to a breaking yard in northern England. The Maritime Administration of the US owns hundreds of these old ships and wants to get rid of them as they pose a considerable environmental risk to the waterways.

The first two ships of the thirteen to be towed to the UK will still contain 30-40 tons of old fuel. The ships also contain hazardous materials such as asbestos, toxic paints and carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The US is breaking US law by leaving PCBs in solid form on board the vessels and exporting it. Furthermore, the fuel oil has not been tested for PCBs. Asbestos will be left on board.

Greenpeace is opposed to the export/import of hazardous materials for disposal, including those in ships. Hazardous materials should be dealt with in the country of origin. The USA is clearly a country that is capable of dealing with its own waste. For this reason Greenpeace considers that these ships should not be exported to the UK for scrap unless they are cleaned of hazardous materials first.

Greenpeace fears that the US seems to be "testing the export waters", setting unfortunate legal precedents and paving the way to export the rest of these toxic ships, possibly to the shipbreaking yards in Asia. The US has overturned a domestic moratorium on exporting ships for scrap put in place by president Clinton and has sought an exemption under its domestic laws on exporting PCB's so it can export these ships. This precedent could later be utilized in the same way to send hundreds of obsolete decommissioned naval vessels from the United States to shipbreaking yards in Asia with the hazardous materials still onboard.

Greenpeace supports the initiative of US-based NGO's to protest against the intended export. For more information of the suit that has been filed by several US based NGOs last Friday to stop the export, please visit www.ban.org .

The intended export of the US navyships clearly shows the double standard policy of many western countries. The UK has told the US that it can deal with the hazardous materials on board these ships. If this is true, the UK should also clean its own ships before exporting them to developing countries for scrap where the contaminants cause environmental destruction and endanger workers' lives. UK shipping companies has sent several toxic ships to the breaking shores in India, Bangladesh and China over the last months without decontaminating them first. Greenpace urges the UK goverment to prevent the illegal export of hazardous wastes to developing countries.