The European Commission has recommended that two Turkish ship breakers should be removed from the latest list of yards approved to recycle European Union-flagged vessels.
The list is maintained as part of the EU’s Ship Recycling Regulation which sets minimum safety and environmental standards for the industry.
In the EC’s latest review it said that the Aliaga-based Isiksan and Simsekler ship recycling facilities should be removed from the list.
The EC said its review of the Isiksan yard “could not confirm that the facility in question continues to comply with the relevant requirements”.
It said it had indications that EU-flag vessels destined to be recycled at the facility “were instead transferred to nearby facilities which are not included in the European list”.
The EC also looked at two fatal accidents that happened at the Simsekler ship recycling facility and said it had uncovered some safety issues at the yard.
“The causes of the accidents were due not only to individual actions, but rather to underlying organisational factors that the yard should focus on to improve their control of risk,” the EC said.
The EC said it had made some safety recommendations to the Simsekler yard but it said the yard had not responded to its request to keep it informed of the improvements.
Fatal accident
TradeWinds reported in February last year a man died in an accident at Simsekler.
The man was hit by a steel block while he was torch-cutting in the secondary cutting area of the yard.
The yard pointed out that the man was not directly working on a vessel when the accident happened.
The inclusion of some Turkish shipbreakers in the EU-approved list has been controversial, following a number of accidents in Aliaga.
In 2020, the Brussels-based recycling lobby group NGO Shipbreaking Platform asked the EC to “look into the possibility of limiting approvals in Aliaga,” following a series of accidents.
Many Turkish yards were flooded with work during the pandemic after the major cruise line operators decided to bring forward their ship demolition plans.
Indian ship breakers, many of which have invested heavily in upgrading safety facilities and are operating in line with the Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, have been excluded from the EU list.
Simsekler and Isiksan recycling yards have been approached for comment.
