SHIPBREAKING — HAZARDS AND LIABILITIES

Even there can still be some minor discrepancy in the numbers, depending on the information source used, more than seven hundred ocean-going vessels are scraped every year. In most cases, this process takes places somewhere on the seashore of the Indian area.

It should be noted, however, that the vessels normally have different hazardous materials contained in their structure; also, these substances can exist within the wastes generated by the vessel during the passages. Since the process of scraping is traditionally manual, this means that the people involved are in danger.

In fact, there was not too much of attention paid to the shipbreaking problem in the past, and only some ten years ago the relative international treaty was released and ratified to target the potential harm to the people as well as the marine environment, considering the pollution.

The efforts made by the industry professionals to regulate same through the Basel Convention have eventually led to the absolutely different opinions on the applicability of the subject document. The second big success was the presentation and adoption of the Hong Kong Convention to help implement the effective controls.