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Agence France Press

Greenpeace International and the Basel Action Network (BAN) protesters unfurled a banner which read "P and O Nedlloyd, Stop Toxic Waste Exports on a tugboat as the British-flagged container ship Encounter Bay sailed into Singapore's busy harbor.

Two of the activists were allowed to board the ship by the captain, to whom they delivered a letter of protest. They unfurled a larger banner on the port side of the ship with the same message.

Greenpeace and the BAN have cited the Encounter Bay as an example of toxic-contaminated ships exported to Asia to be scrapped before they are are decontaminated.

The protesters said, the ship, which was unloading its, last container shipment in Singapore before being scrapped in China, contained high levels of toxic and hazardous materials including heavy metals and asbestos.

Jim Puckett, director of BAN which is a network of non-government organizations fighting toxic waste, said the export of the ship violated the United Nations' Basel Convention banning the export of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries.

"Export of this ship from the Netherlands to China via Singapore, is clearly illegal and immoral. Yet there exists a conspiracy of silence around this practice," Puckett said.

"The ship itself is hazardous, waste. It's not only cargo that can be hazardous," said Nitiyanand Jayaramanan, a Greenpeace campaigner.

The process of ship-breaking which is done to retrieve high-quality metals is a dangerous process which can pollute the enviromnent and endanger the health of workers during the scrapping process, Greenpeace and BAN said.

The two aroups have called on the Singapore government to prevent the ship from leaving the island and have also alerted authorities in China to its expected arrival.

The Singapore environment ministry in a letter to the two groups said it would look into the matter.