Calls for Safe and Green Recycling of FSO Safer Off Yemen’s Coast

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform is urging for the safe and environmentally friendly recycling of the FSO Safer, a vessel currently being salvaged off the coast of Yemen. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is searching for a suitable destination for the recycling of the FSO, and the Platform is calling on the Dutch government, a major donor to the Stop Red Sea Oil Pollution operation, to assist the UNDP in identifying an appropriate recycling facility. The Netherlands has been actively involved in preventing the potential environmental disaster that an oil spill from the FSO Safer could cause. Dutch company Boskalis, through its subsidiary SMIT Salvage, has been given the task of removing the oil from the vessel.

Ingvild Jenssen, Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, emphasizes the importance of ensuring that the recycling facility fully respects labor rights and operates in accordance with environmentally friendly practices. She praises the Dutch government and Boskalis for their commitment to environmentally friendly technologies and sound life-cycle practices. Shipping broker Clarkson has already received bids for the towing and scrapping of the FSO Safer on behalf of the UNDP. The Platform urges the UNDP to choose a destination that goes beyond the weak standards set by the International Maritime Organization’s Hong Kong Convention and complies with international waste law.

Jenssen criticizes the Hong Kong Convention for its failure to ensure sustainable ship recycling and its disregard for labor rights and international rules for hazardous waste management. She argues that the convention favors shipping companies by allowing them to avoid the true cost of ethical recycling and undermines the credibility of its own objectives and those of the IMO. Various NGOs, the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, the Centre for International Environmental Law, and the European Parliament have all exposed the weaknesses of the Hong Kong Convention’s standards and enforcement mechanisms. Additionally, the majority of countries party to the UNEP Basel Convention have found that the Hong Kong Convention does not provide an equivalent level of control to prevent the dumping of toxic ships in developing countries.

One major flaw of the Hong Kong Convention is the responsibility for enforcement lies with the vessel’s flag state and the recycling state, without independent control mechanisms in place. This means that end-of-life vessels from flag states with poor implementation of international maritime law, often headed for South Asian beaches, will be in charge of enforcement, increasing the risk to labor and the environment in these areas.

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