After the Danish shipping company Maersk admitted to duplicity in vessel recycling, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform’s Executive Director Patrizia Heidegger has called on “the world’s leading ship owner to become a true leader for clean and safe ship recycling.”

In order to do so, Heidegger said that the company should opt for “investing in and working with modern ship recycling yards off the beach that can guarantee the highest standard of environmental protection, hazardous waste treatment and occupational health and safety for workers.”

She explained that, by practicing duplicity in vessel recycling, Maersk “created strong financial incentives for their business partners to scrap old ships in the beaching yards of Bangladesh and India.”

“Maersk sorted out its fleet by selling older vessels to other ship owners, chartered the ships back immediately to keep them in their fleet as long as convenient – and then motivated the other owners do the dirty job,” according to Heidegger.

Maersk earlier admitted that its own contracts from divestments “have not always guaranteed the intention” of the company’s recycling policy.

The ship owner has thus tightened its procedures and contract requirements while also realizing that the solution “does not lie with clever contracts and that it may take a long time for a global agreement to become effective,” according to Annette Stube, Head of Maersk Group Sustainability.

World Maritime News Staff