European Commission Adds Three More Yards to the EU SRR List

The European Union has added three new yards and extending the authorization of two others to its list of approved ship recycling facilities.

The European Commission announced that DECOM Amsterdam B.V located in the Netherlands and Dales Marine Services and Kishorn Port both located in the United Kingdom are now part of facilities that shipowners can send their end-of-life ships for dismantling.

Two facilities located in France, the Grand Port Maritime de Bordeaux and GARDET & DE BEZENAC Recycling, have seen their authorization of their mandate to carry out ship recycling extended. 

With the updated list, European shipowners now have access to 46 ship-recycling facilities that comply with the EU Ship Recycling Regulation (EU SRR) that sets standards for environmental and health and safety compliance in shipbreaking. The facilities include 37 yards in Europe (EU, Norway and UK), eight yards in Turkey and one yard in the U.S. Several yards on the list are capable of recycling large vessels.

European shipowners possess around 40 percent of the world fleet. The majority of end-of-life ships are dismantled outside the bloc, mainly in South Asia, under conditions that are often harmful to workers’ health and the environment. EU regulations require all large sea-going vessels sailing under an EU member state flag to use an EU-approved ship recycling facility. To date, no yard in South Asia has been approved. 

The European list of authorized yards is regularly updated to add compliant facilities or to remove facilities that have ceased to comply. For facilities located in the EU, national authorities must check that all the relevant conditions are met, and then inform the European Commission that the facility should be listed. Ship recycling facilities located outside the bloc have to apply to the commission for inclusion in the list.