The European Parliament's Environment, Climate Change and Food Security Committee (ENVI) voted on November 4th to overwhelmingly reject the inclusion of two shipbreaking facilities, namely Shree Ram and YSI Recyclers, located in Alang-Sosiya, India, in the list of 16 European ship recycling facilities. These facilities had been temporarily approved by the European Commission for recycling ships flagged under the EU.
Reasons for Rejecting Shipbreaking Facilities
The objection from Members of the European Parliament is based on the premise that facilities using the "beaching" method, which dismantle ships in tidal areas, cannot be included in the EU list because they do not meet the EU's environmental and worker safety standards. The ENVI Committee has clearly stated that "the inclusion of facilities that use beaching methods for dismantling end-of-life ships would be contrary to the purpose and text of [the Ship Recycling Regulation]."
In beaching facilities, the initial cutting of ships is done directly in the tidal zone, making pollution control and containment impossible. Environmental monitoring reports from these facilities indicate that pollution levels for several toxic substances found in end-of-life ships are high and have even increased since 2017 and 2020 for copper, chromium, cadmium, and mercury, despite a decrease in the number of ships dismantled in Alang-Sosiya since 2021.
Concerns About Waste Management and Recycling Capacity
The objection also emphasizes that waste management in Alang-Sosiya has not been proven to comply with standards equivalent to EU standards. Typically, recycled metals are sent to local rolling mills that have not been inspected or assessed. The legal proposal from the European Commission presented on September 18, 2026, does not permit the export of ferrous and non-ferrous metal waste to India due to serious concerns about steel recycling there. A ship is a complex, coated, and contaminated metal structure that is far more hazardous than sorted ferrous metal waste, which the Commission has proposed to ban for export to India.
Ultimately, the argument regarding the increase in listed capacity, often raised by shipowners, lacks criteria and is not mentioned in the EU ship recycling regulations. The facilities currently on the EU list have a combined capacity of over 2 million tons deadweight (LDT), which is sufficient to dismantle all EU-flagged and EU-owned ships that have been sent for recycling in recent years. Including beaching facilities would undermine responsible recyclers who are striving to meet high standards in environmental, health, safety, and labor, and would exacerbate the unfair competition they currently face.
This vote sends a strong message to the European Commission. Ignoring the numerous identified problems in beaching facilities, which have even been referenced in the Commission's own monitoring reports, contradicts the purpose of the law to ensure the safe and environmentally sound recycling of EU-flagged ships. The Commission should instead propose measures that contribute to increasing capacity for sustainable and safe ship recycling in line with the EU's industrial policy on circular economy and strategic autonomy.
The objection to this issue was supported by a broad coalition of stakeholders, including the steel industry, the recycling industry, trade unions, and environmental NGOs. This issue will be voted on in a public session at the end of November.
