Britain's own 'ghost fleet'
by Paul Brown, The Guardian
30 November 2003 – The last of the US navy ships arrived in Hartlepool pending a high court decision on whether they can be dismantled there, it was revealed that British navy ships with similar problems have been sold to Turkey for disposal, then passed on to India after they were banned by the Turkish government.Representatives of a Turkish yard that breaks up ships 50 km south of Izmir were recently tendering to buy HMS intrepid, a 12,000-tonne Falklands-war veteran built in 1967 on the Clyde, which contains 40 tonnes of asbestos.
Two years ago the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers Olwen and the Oina, built-in 1965 mid-1966, were sent to Turkey to be scrapped. The Turkish environment ministry turned the ships back as it was illegal to import hazardous waste in the form of asbestos and PCBs, an insulating material found in electrical equipment that causes cancer and birth defects. The ships, then under a British flag, were sailed to Greece, registered under new names and transferred to the Comoros, a flag of convenience.
They were then sailed to Alang in India, where ships are beached and broken up by hand by workers with no access to protective clothing or face masks. Exporting ships from developed countries to developing countries without removing all contaminants is illegal under the Basle convention, to which the UK is a party. The MoD conceded that the two tankers had gone to India, but claimed that the contaminants had been removed in Greece. A spokesman said no decision had yet been made about HMS Intrepid, but that Turkish yards had been asked to tender for the ship. He said the ship would adhere to all Environment Agency and European Commission rules. In addition, he claimed that since Turkey was a member of the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation, it had in place procedures for the safe removal of asbestos. A campaigner for Greenpeace, Marietta Harjono, who visited Anadolu Demolition Shipyard, which is tendering for the Intrepid, found that the work was done in the open air. “To claim that they have the required facilities to handle asbestos is laughable. These are the poorest, least well equipped workers.”
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