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By Geoff Garfield, London Tradewinds

IZMIR, Turkey, 8 February 2002 -- Shipowners will find it tougher to sell their ships for demolition in Turkey as the government supports a crackdown on the country being used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste, according to environmental group Greenpeace.

Although Turkey has been overtaken as a ship-scrapping hub by the Indian sub-continent and China, scores of vessels still end up on the Aliaga beach near Izmir. Greenpeace toxic campaigner Erdem Vardar says the area resembles a "scene from another planet".

Vardar says Sani Agirgun, in charge of pollution prevention issues at the Turkish ministry of the environment, has now accepted Greenpeace's demands that vessels be stripped of asbestos, PCBs, TBTs and other contaminants before they are delivered.

Some shipowners and organisations have hit back, saying such demands are totally unrealistic. They claim it would result in partly-dismantled vessels being towed on their final voyage, risking sinking on the way.

Despite the protests, the Greenpeace campaigner also says he has managed to contact Turkey's environment minister, Fevzi Aytekin, by telephone. Vardar claims Aytekin agreed that scrap ships containing toxic materials should no longer be beached.

Vardar says he has received verbal assurance that other government ministers, including foreign trade, would receive letters urging them to assist in curbing the trade.

It is unlikely, however, that an industry providing employment for up to 3,000 people at peak periods will be choked off by the authorities bowing immediately to Greenpeace's demands.

The Dutch government has already tried to prevent the export of ships containing hazardous materials from Europe to developing countries for demolition. But it has found the task to be bigger than expected and recently suffered a setback when the matter returned to the country's highest administrative court, the Raad van State. It is said that at least 50% of ships scrapped in Turkey come from western Europe. Vardar accuses the European Union of supporting double standards by trying to enforce high environmental standards on EU-applicant countries like Turkey while allowing the dumping of the "most dangerous substances known to mankind" in its own backyard.

Greenpeace complains about the health threat to workers and local people at Aliaga, where there are said to be around 18 shipbreakers, not all of them operational. However, Vardar concedes that Greenpeace had no supporting statistics, although it has taken sediment and soil samples to determine what toxins are in the area.

"They live and sleep in the shipbreaking area, surrounded by contamination," Vardar said, referring to the many villagers who seek employment at the beach for part of the year. He also claims that workers do not wear protective clothing when handling asbestos. The 1.5-kilometre-long Aliaga beach is covered by "brown sand, a mixture of chemicals," he added.

Letters have been sent to all the relevant Turkish authorities but Greenpeace is still waiting for a formal response.

The organisation claims that the environment ministry has agreed that in future an inventory of hazardous materials should be presented when a ship arrives for scrapping.

There is already legislation preventing the import of hazardous waste and this only has to be amended to include demolition vessels, according to Vardar.