Dear readers,
Shipbreaking Monthly is back after Summer break, and is coming back with a monthly frequency, and a large portion of information from the world of ship recycling.
What will you find in this issue?
Save the date: Ship Recycling Lab 2026 | Transformation Through Innovation, 4–15 October 2026, Marseille
The 16th List of ship recycling facilities and the controversial beaching pre-approval
NGO Shipbreaking Platform and T&E publish a report on the EU capacities of recycling ships
Toxic gas leak in Ferdous Steel in Chattogram, Bangladesh, kills 10 workers Raising standards in global ship recycling meeting in Brussels Turkish civil society organisations criticise the new Environmental Impact Assessment for Aliağa
EU-India Free Trade Agreement and the shipbreaking sector
News from CirclesOfLife
Enjoy the reading!
Save the date: Ship Recycling Lab 2026 | Transformation Through Innovation, 4–15 October 2026, Marseille
NGO Shipbreaking Platform’s biennial flagship event is approaching. In less than 2 weeks, policymakers, shipowners, recyclers, innovators, and many more progressive stakeholders from the maritime sector will gather in Marseille to discuss and showcase sustainable and safe ship recycling innovations and policies. This edition will focus on four pillars: circularity, innovation, leadership, and green steel.
🔱 Ship Recycling Lab 2026 | Transformation Through Innovation | 14-15 October 2026, Marseille, France
🚢 Did you know that up to 95% of ship’s weight can be recovered as scrap steel? End-of-life ships are an excellent, yet untapped source of high quality scrap, which can be repurposed and reused in many sectors!
💡 The Ship Recycling Lab brings together progressive and innovative policymakers, start-ups, recyclers, and many other stakeholders from various sectors. We aim to create a vibrant space for inspiring discussions, and facilitate development of modern solutions for ship recycling in line with circularity, decarbonisation efforts, clean steel production, and sustainable industry of the future.
⚓ Representatives of Petrobras, IOGP, Hapag-Lloyd AG, Damen, Elegant Exit Company, Sea2Cradle, IndustriALL Global Union, SBM Offshore, European Environmental Bureau, Porto de Açu, Innovation Norway, Recycling Europe, The European Steel Association (EUROFER), Atlante Gestion and European institutions are joining NGO Shipbreaking Platform to showcase and exchange ideas for best practices and strategies for ship recycling, design, waste management and material recovery.
🫵 Come join us and 100+ progressive stakeholders for networking opportunities, inspiring keynote speaker sessions, thought-provoking presentations and interactive panel discussions.
👉 More information and tickets: https://lnkd.in/e3wXfE3T
Ship Recycling Lab is a forward-thinking event showcasing best practices for ship demolition and design, waste management, and material recovery. Through presentations, panel discussions and networking sessions, the Lab will focus on the solutions, financing and cooperation needed to advance safer, cleaner and more circular ship recycling practices.
Representatives of Petrobras, IOGP, Hapag-Lloyd AG, Damen, EEC (Elegant Exit Company), Sea2Cradle, IndustriALL Global Union, SBM Offshore, European Environmental Bureau, Porto de Açu, Innovation Norway, Recycling Europe, and European institutions are joining NGO Shipbreaking Platform to showcase and exchange ideas for best practices and strategies for ship recycling, design, waste management and material recovery.
Last tickets still available here!
Let’s meet at Ship Recycling Lab and contribute to a sustainable and innovative ship recycling sector of the future, the future that is now!
The European Commision’s proposal for the 16th EU List of ship recycling facilities sparks controversies due to the first ever approval of beaching
Between 22 July and 30 August, a public consultation on the 16th EU List of ship recycling facilities was held. Besides standard approvals or removals of ship recycling yards located in the EU, United Kingdom or Turkey, the proposed List included two ‘beaching’ yards located in Alang, India – Shree Ram and YSI Recyclers. This proposal raised serious concerns within the maritime sector and beyond.
The EU Ship Recycling Regulation’s (EU SRR) objective is to ensure safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships. For this reason, ship recycling yards must meet several safety criteria in order to be included on the EU List. For years, the EU decision-makers stood on the position that beaching is not a safe ship dismantling method, therefore no beaching facility has ever been approved by the European Commission. The currently prepared 16th EU List is the first one that approves beaching by including two yards operating with this ship dismantling method.
Ship recycling yards must meet the same criteria enshrined in the EU SRR, whether they are located in The Netherlands, Turkey, India, or anywhere else in the world. As NGO Shipbreaking Platform, we have been warning about the dangers of beaching for years.
“None of the beaching yards would be allowed to clone their operations on a tidal mudflat in the EU. Their inclusion on the EU List will set a chilling double standard and seriously undermine the EU’s own ship recycling sector,” says Ingvild Jenssen, Executive Director and Founder of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
Regardless of the improvements made by the yards in Alang, tidal mudflats are not acceptable places to recycle ships. This has nothing to do with ‘geography’, as several shipowners pointed out, but with the fundamental inability to contain pollutants and hazardous waste in the high tidal area of Gujarati coast, which unfortunately was proven again with the heavy fuel spill at Priya Blue shipbreaking yard in Alang, that occurred in June this year.
For this reason, the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban Amendment have been adopted, which prevent exporting hazardous waste from OECD to non-OECD countries, a category that includes end-of-life ships.
