Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), One of the world’s largest container shipping companies based in Switzerland, is again under the spotlight for its substandard and hazardous dismantling of obsolete vessels on tidal beaches in South Asia. While the company has repeatedly faced criticism for breaching international environmental and labour rights standards, it has not shown any willingness to improve its practices.

MSC scrapped nine ships on the beach of Alang in India - 27 in the last two years, including the MSC Floriana and MSC Giovanna. These vessels left respectively from Spanish and Turkish waters in direct violation of European and international laws prohibiting the export of hazardous waste from OECD to non-OECD countries, said the Belgium-based NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a global coalition of organisations working to reverse the environmental harm and human rights abuses caused by current shipbreaking practices and to ensure the safe and environmentally sound dismantling of end-of-life ships worldwide.

The Swiss shipping giant has sold more than 100 end-of-life vessels for dirty and dangerous scrapping on South Asian beaches over the last fifteen years, the NGO said, only in the last six months.

“Dumping toxic ships on tidal beaches is both environmentally destructive and exploitative of poorly-paid and unprotected workers. It constitutes a serious criminal offence, as highlighted by recent rulings in the EU. We have therefore alerted relevant authorities of MSC’s blatant breach of environmental law governing international waste trade, and are following up to see what action can be taken”, says Ingvild Jenssen, Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.

A spokesperson for the NGO said the infrastructure for scrapping a ship should ensure environmental containment and safe working conditions (e.g., dry docks). Workers should be properly trained, paid, represented, and equipped with PPE. Hazardous waste should be dealt with properly downstream. Many of the above aspects are lacking in South Asia. The fact that a yard is off the beach does not necessarily guarantee everything is fine.

The NGO said criminal investigations underway in multiple EU nations, including Germany, reflect a growing international commitment to holding offenders accountable and strengthening regulatory enforcement to address environmental and labour hazards associated with unlawful shipbreaking.

MSC’s poor management of its end-of-life assets is particularly deplorable given its financial strength. With a staggering $86 billion turnover in 2022, the company is expanding rapidly, with an estimated capacity to soon match the combined fleets of competitors Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd. However, despite the financial capacity to recycle its end-of-life fleet sustainably, MSC seemingly prefers to accumulate profits by exposing workers, vulnerable coastal communities, and sensitive ecosystems to harm. Indeed, with prices reaching up to $500 per light displacement tonnage (LDT) for scrapping on the beaches of South Asia, MSC can earn up to three times more than its recycling assets in EU-approved facilities.

By contrast, MSC UK launched the Waste Shipment Intelligence Service earlier this year in collaboration with the UK Environmental Agency, aiming to curb the illegal trade of waste onboard its vessels. In August this year, MSC also returned 40 containers of hazardous waste that had been illegally exported onboard two A.P. Moller-Maersk’s A/S - another company that dumps its end-of-life vessels on South Asian beaches - chartered ships from Albania, the NGO said.

In response to a query from businessline on the issue, MSC’s corporate communication team directed to the company’s ship recycling policy online. It stipulates the selection of shipyards that are certified and compliant with the technical provisions of the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships.

Shyam Jagannathan, Director General of Shipping, told the businessline that the HKC will kick in by April 2025, and India will be a signatory to the convention. “All our yards (a large majority as 95 per cent ship recycling units are at Alang) are HKC compliant whereby sustainable practices for ship breaking would be a compliance requirement and India is aspiring to be a foremost nation in the global recycling nation within the next decade,” he said.