It will be a year next Wednesday since the death of green shiprecycling pioneer Tom Peter Blankestijn. The loss of the thoughtful Dutchman from a heart attack at the age of 58 was a tragedy for his family.

It was also a heavy blow for those who shared his vision of helping shipping move away from the dangerous traditional ways of scrapping ships that have blighted the industry and those who work in it.

But this week, a fitting tribute emerged to the importance of Blankestijn’s work to pioneer safe and environmentally sound recycling on a sound commercial footing.

Cruise giant Carnival revealed it has worked with the consultancy Blankestijn founded, Sea2Cradle, to ensure the green scrapping in Turkey of two vessels cast off as the company battles to stabilise under the cosh of the coronavirus pandemic.

More remarkably, Carnival has also been working with the environmental organisation Bellona Foundation — a lead partner in the NGO Shipbreaking Platform campaign — to help it live up to its pledge to build a sustainable cruise industry.

Revolutionary

For a company of the scale and conservative heft of Carnival to work with the organisation behind the radical NGO Shipbreaking Platform will be seen as nothing far short of revolutionary by some in the industry.

Bellona’s Sigurd Enge and NGO Shipbreaking Platform’s Ingvild Jenssen have been cast over the years as a dangerous mix of radical heretics and naive dreamers.

The reality, of course, is that Enge and Jenssen have been speaking the uncomfortable truth about the need to clean up shipping, and are not afraid to call out large powerful companies who ignore their responsibilities.

Enge told TradeWinds this week: “By choosing to recycle their ships in Turkey, Carnival is showing how to put responsible management into practice.

“Bellona is grateful that Carnival, as a significant player in the shipping sector, goes in front and leads the way to responsible management throughout the whole lifecycle of their ships.”

In recent weeks, TradeWinds has tracked Carnival’s fleet as it revealed first that it intended to sell at least 13 vessels, and then that it had identified others as scrap candidates.

The cruise giant has seen its fleet idled in recent months due to the global virus lockdown, causing it to haemorrhage cash and face questions over its survival.

First to go was the 70,400-gt Carnival Fantasy (built 1990), followed a few days later by sistership Carnival Inspiration (built 1996). While the workhorses of the Carnival fleet remained perfectly serviceable, their size meant there were few companies interested in taking them.

After offloading items to be saved at Willemstad, Curacao, they both sailed for Izmir, the port close to the Turkish shipbreaking hub of Aliaga.

Help needed

Faced with the need to scrap big vessels under the potential spotlight of global scrutiny of its environmental performance, Carnival reached out to Sea2Cradle for help.

Carnival commissioned two Aliaga yards — Simsekler and Ege Celik — to scrap the ships.

The yards are not only compliant with the IMO’s Hong Kong shiprecycling convention — which is still yet to come into force — but are also approved under the European Union's Ship Recycling Regulation.

Ege Celik won accreditation under the strict rules from Brussels after a single two-day inspection in June 2019, while Simsekler needed two inspections and an action plan to resolve flaws before winning approval in February.

Sea2Cradle was founded by Blankestijn and Wouter Rozenveld in 2011 after AP Moller-Maersk withdrew from the green recycling of third-party vessels.

Having now handled more than 160 green scrapping projects for companies such as Maersk and Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Rozenveld said in a statement that Sea2Cradle is "proud to collaborate with Carnival Corporation for the clean and safe recycling of their retired cruise vessels".

Carnival’s commitment to green scrapping came on the same day as another major shipowner, Taiwain’s Evergreen Marine joined the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative online platform to publicly disclose its approach to scrapping.

Carnival and Evergreen's conversion to green scrapping is another major stride towards cleaning up what is arguably shipping's worst social and environmental behaviour.

If Tom Peter — as he was known to friends — was here today, it would once more light up his generous smile with a sense of pride.