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SPANISH ACTIVISTS PROTEST DUMPING OF SCRAP SHIPS TO INDIA

November 16, 1998 -- (Deutsche Presse Agentur) Environmental activists boarded a British-Dutch container ship in the Spanish port of Barcelona Monday, protesting its sale to Asia where it is to be dismantled despite containing highly toxic substances, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace said. The Greenpeace ship Sirius approached M.S. Encounter Bay, property of P&O Nedlloyd shipping company, and six activists climbed aboard, the environmentalist organisation said. They displayed a sheet reading "Stop dumping on Asia" and handed a protest letter to the captain.

"We cannot prevent the owners from taking the Encounter Bay to Asia, but at least we can draw attention to the problem," said Elena Fuste of Greenpeace. It was not clear whether the ship would be taken to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, but activists said it would probably be dismantled at India's largest scrap shipyard in Alang north of Bombay.

The activists said the ship's isolation systems and paint cover contained asbestos, PCBs and toxic metals including lead, chromium, copper and zinc. "The toxins must be removed before the ship sails to India," Fuste said. Greenpeace says the toxins endanger the environment and the health of Indian workers who dismantle ships with hardly any protection.

"The scrapping of such ships is against international environmental agreements as well as against Indian legislation," said Andreas Bernstorff of Greenpeace in Hamburg, Germany.

An agreement signed in the Swiss city of Basle prohibits the export of toxic waste from the European Union from the beginning of this year, activists said. P&O Nedlloyd has already sold around half a dozen ships to India, Bangladesh and China, according to Greenpeace.

The Alang yard alone dismantles around 200 ships a year while India gets 15 per cent of its metal production from scrap shipyards, said Ravi Agarwal of the environmental organisation

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