16 February 2005 (London, UK) – More than 100 British-owned oil tankers, among the world's oldest and most dangerous, must be scrapped this year - but there are not enough shipyards to do so legally, it was disclosed yesterday.

The ships are among 334 European tankers and around 1,100 worldwide that are single hulled and now considered too dangerous to operate. From April 5 it will be illegal for them to transport oil, and they must be scrapped by the end of the year unless they can be found an alternative use.

The decision has caused a crisis in the ship-breaking industry, because it is illegal under European law to export toxic waste to developing countries.

Oil tankers contain waste oil, asbestos and PCBs, all classed as toxic, and therefore cannot be sent to be broken up in India, Bangladesh or other Asian countries, as has been the practice. Now the only legal way to send them to Asia is to clean them first, but few yards in Europe have the capacity to do so.

Yesterday three UN bodies representing 163 countries met at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) headquarters in London to try to agree how to scrap such ships without breaching international law.

The International Labour Organisation, the Basel Convention (a body which controls toxic waste shipments), and the IMO met jointly to weigh up the conflicting needs of shipowners and of prevention of pollution exporting.

One suggestion, on "the polluter pays" principle, was a levy on shipowners to equip European yards to clean ships ready for dismantling elsewhere - although delegates were told that an average of one worker a day dies on the beaches of Asia because of explosions or other accidents caused while breaking ships without proper equipment.

Until last October, shipowners had avoided the Basel Convention's rules by claiming that the hulks to be broken up were ships to be recycled.

However, in October, the European Union joined by Norway, Turkey and Iceland agreed this was no longer legal and the ships must either be cleaned before export or be dismantled in Europe.

The Basel Action Network campaigns to bring an end to scrapping on Asian beaches. Its spokesman, Jim Puckett, said: "The sudden need to scrap all these tankers has concentrated minds on an issue that everyone has been trying to ignore for a long time. There are yards in Europe, Hartlepool for instance, which would love to have the business, but what is needed is a funding mechanism. We think the shipowners should pay a levy."