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Greenpeace Press Release

Campaigners, who delivered the asbestos to P&O Nedlloyd’s office in Quarry Bay, wore protective masks and gloves to emphasise the hazardous nature of the material.

The asbestos sample was collected by Greenpeace in January from a scrapyard in Lianhuashan, Panyu City, Guangdong Province, where a P&O Nedlloyd-owned vessel, Botany Bay, was being dismantled.

P&O Nedlloyd, an Anglo-Dutch container-shipping company, operates 112 owned and chartered vessels. The company sells an average of nine vessels for scrapping in Asia each year. Two such decommissioned vessels – Botany Bay and Encounter Bay – were tracked down by Greenpeace in southern China earlier this year (1).

These two P&O Nedlloyd-owned vessels, sent to China for scrapping without first being decontaminated, contained high levels of hazardous substances, including heavy metals and asbestos. These toxic materials will pollute the environment and endanger the health of workers during the scrapping process as witnessed by Greenpeace investigation teams.

"We are against the export of toxic waste to Asia and waste dumping from developed countries to developing ones. These vessels such as Encounter Bay are hazardous waste in the form of a ship as they structurally contain toxins including asbestos and heavy metals," said Dr Howard Liu, campaigner of Greenpeace China.

"When a ship reaches the end of its roughly 28-year life span, it has to be scrapped. Many developed countries are sending their waste vessels to scrapyards in Asia because the costs are low and environmental and safety standards are lax. The world should condemn this immoral practice of profiting at the expense of the health of workers and the environment," Dr Liu stressed.

Greenpeace is not against shipbreaking but demands that all ships-for-scrap should be properly decontaminated before being sent to non-OECD countries for breaking and urges the shipbuilding industry to build ships that are toxics-free.

According to recent press reports, United Kingdom medical authorities have warned that up to 500,000 people in Europe could die from asbestos-related cancers in the next three decades.

Notes to Editors:

(1) Encounter Bay is one of 700 waste ships that are exported to Asia each year to be scrapped without first being decontaminated. Greenpeace and Basel Action Network (BAN) have been tracking Encounter Bay since last November and have demonstrated at P&O Nedlloyd’s headquarters in Rotterdam, and protested on the ship in Barcelona, Sydney, Auckland and Singapore before it made its final journey to China.

For more information:

Dr Howard Liu, Greenpeace China campaigner -- 2854 8311 9027 2081

Clement Lam, Greenpeace China campaigner – 2854 8377 9196 7174