British Environment Agency Stops Tanker From Leaving Port

The British Environment Agency has exercised its power to prevent a tanker ship, the Margaret Hill, from leaving the port of Southampton. A report from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency provided to the Environmental Agency said that the old natural gas tanker ship might have contained several tons of asbestos, as well as other dangerous materials. Agency officials state that the ship may have been headed overseas for illegal disassembly at a site where proper precautions for asbestos removal and cleanup would not have been taken.

Liz Parkes, an official in charge of the Environment Agency's department of waste and resource management, stated that the Margaret Hill in under investigation by the authorities and would not be allowed to leave port until they have ascertained how the ship will be dismantled and what precautions will be taken with the hazardous materials.

Ms. Parkes also said that the agency is complying with international law by preventing such dangerous substances from being disposed of in locations that do not provide adequate safety precautions for either workers' health or the environment. According to her statement, the agency will only grant passage for a ship to leave for disassembly if it is going to a port that provides proper disposal, remediation and recycling facilities in a nation that has agreed to international environmental treaties. Ms. Parkes and other officials with the agency are in talks with the ship owners to educate them about the required procedures and to obtain the proper paperwork that would insure that the company follows the proper disposal methods.

One facet of the international agreements that Ms. Parkes cited is that companies who are trying to dispose of old ships follow the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, which sixty-three signatory countries accepted last May. The convention states that countries in the business of dismantling ships follow basic worker safety and environmental protection guidelines.

One of the nations that have not yet signed the accord is Bangladesh, where ship recycling is a major industry. This small, poor country gets more than three-quarters of its national steel resources from the ship disassembly industry, which employs nearly half a million workers. However, many reports state that the Bangladeshi facilities do not provide protection for workers from asbestos, PCBs, or other dangerous substances that are often found in older ships.

Environment Agency officials moved to stop the Margaret Hill from leaving port to prevent the ship from undergoing disassembly at any such shipyard that does not comply with the accords or other international environmental treaties. The owners must also provide an inventory of hazardous substances to agency officials, as well as a full recycling plan for the vessel.

Allan Graveson, an official with the Nautilus worker's union, praised the decision to keep the ship from leaving port. He cited the top-level ship recycling facilities available in Britain and how they take measures to prevent harmful substances such as asbestos from affecting the workers or the environment.

Sources: Click Green, Environment News Service

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