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by AZLIN AHMAD, Reuters

Greenpeace members hung a giant banner saying ``P&O Nedlloyd Stop Toxic Trade'' on the vessel ``Encounter Bay,'' owned by Anglo-Dutch firm P&O Nedlloyd.

The ship, in Singapore after stopping at five other ports, was heading to China to be scrapped.

Greenpeace officials told Reuters they were protesting against what they called the limited care with which shipowners disposed of toxic materials in Asia.

``We think shipbreaking yards in Asia have very bad circumstances for the environment and for labour and we think the owners of ships are responsible,'' Eco Matser, the campaign leader in the Netherlands, told Reuters.

``In India, they take out the asbestos with their bare hands and dry them in the sun, releasing a lot of fibres into the air, and then they sell it as asbestos. We think this is very bad.''

Matser said a German scientist, whom he did not identify, had estimated one in four people working at the sites was expected to get cancer as a result of the toxic materials in the ships.

Greenpeace wanted shipowners to take toxic materials, such as asbestos and lead, from a ship before sending it for scrap, he said. Matser did not say if the Encounter Bay was carrying any toxic cargo.

The vessel had been targeted as P&O Nedlloyd had sent seven ships to scrapyards in India over the past year and planned to send three more in the coming year, he said.

``We have followed this ship from Spain, Australia, New Zealand, then to Australia again and now to Singapore. Singapore is a special place because it is the last harbour before it finally goes to China,'' he said.

Matser said Greenpeace had faced no problems with the Singapore authorities.

``We don't expect any problems because we are not attacking the Singapore government. We are saying the shipowners are responsible,'' he said.

Matser said discussions between Greenpeace and P&O Nedlloyd in Rotterdam had produced few results.

``They said they agree with the situation in Asia, that the scrapyards are unacceptable but they say they will continue to send the ships to Asia anyway,'' he said.

``They said it has to be solved in the long run with all the shipping people together.''

Greenpeace had also written to Singapore's Environment Ministry as well as Chinese authorities asking for them to investigate how the ships were scrapped, Matser said.

``We're at the stage where we're trying to wake up the world to the situation and I think we've been successful so far,'' Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network (BAN) told Reuters.

The United Nations' Basel Convention prohibits the export of hazardous waste from the major industrialised nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to non-OECD countries.

``So far we have been able to get the attention of unions and certain governments who are pretending not to notice, but know very well there is toxic colonialism in disguise even as we speak,'' Greenpeace India campaigner Nityanand Jayaraman said aboard the boat that headed to the Encounter Bay.