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THE decision of the International Maritime Organisation to embrace the existing industry code of practice on ship recycling has been welcomed by the International Chamber of Shipping as "a positive move," writes our IMO correspondent.

"We may not need an IMO instrument," a chamber official said. "The industry may show that it wants to control it [ship recycling]."

The overwhelming opinion of the IMO's marine environment protection committee earlier this month was that there should be no duplication of effort (MEPC 47, March 4-8).

The industry code should be given a chance and experience gained using it. Proposals by India and Greenpeace International for the development of a legally binding IMO instrument fell on stony ground.

The committee agreed that "for the time being" the IMO's role should be to develop guidelines that make a range of recommendations building extensively on the industry code. The target date for their adoption is 2003.

The industry code is not written in stone, however. It was published in August last year as a "preliminary versionae distributed with a view to test it in practice."

The chamber spokesperson said that "many useful comments" had been raised in the committee's working group on ship recycling which it was studying carefully.

"We will continue to work with the code and are looking at whether we can prepare a second edition incorporating some of the comments raised," he said.

The industry code primarily covers issues shipowners can reasonably be expected to address. A key element concerns the systematic identification and recording by shipping companies of any potentially hazardous materials inherent in ship construction, equipment and machinery so that an inventory is readily available whenever the ship changes ownership.

A first draft outline of the proposed IMO guidelines was prepared by the committee's working group on the basis of the industry code and a report of a correspondence group of the committee.

In addition to covering ships (new and existing) and shipowner incentives (for example the green passport concept), the draft outline covers the role of flag, port and recycling states and relations with other stakeholders (for example yards, charterers, insurers).

It will be considered by various sub-committees and further developed by the correspondence group before the next meeting of the committee in October.

It remains to be seen if owners can assume that as long as they comply with the industry code, it will be accepted that there is nothing more they can reasonably do to ensure the safe and environmentally responsible preparation of vessels destined for the scrap yard.

As the chamber spokesperson said: "There is not just the IMO to worry about, but also the International Labour Organisation and the Basle Convention." The latter are concerned, respectively, with the welfare of seafarers and yard workers and with the transboundary movement of hazardous and noxious wastes, including their export to developing countries.

The committee earlier agreed that the IMO should assume a co-ordinating role towards the ILO and the Basle Convention. Two partially broken ships lie on the shore at the shipbreaking yard in Alang, India.

(c) 2002 of Lloyd's of London Press Limited