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Owners’
enterprise applauded as pressure mounts for convention on
antifouling paints, writes Brian Reyes-Monday October 01 2001
A GROUP of leading shipping companies will
this week form an organotin-free owners’ club as environmental
groups put mounting pressure on the International Maritime
Organisation to adopt a convention on harmful antifouling
paints.
Hamburg Sud, Hapag Lloyd Cruises, Wallenius Lines and Wallenius-Wilhelmsen
Lines will be the founder members of Group 2003, formed after
the positive results of a WWF-led project in Germany which
tested the efficiency of non-toxic paints on 19 vessels.
This group obliterates the myth that phasing out is impossible
as there are no efficient alternative, said Simon Vowles,
marine policy officer for the WWF (formerly known as the World
Wildlife Fund). These companies are maintaining their position
in a very competitive market despite going organotin-free.
Global environmental groups WWF and Greenpeace are urging
officials at this week’s IMO diplomatic conference on antifouling
to agree a legal framework to phase out the use on ships of
harmful organotins, including TBT.
The groups are pushing for IMO to adhere to the proposed
dates for a ban on applications of organotin-based antifouling
paint by January 2003, and the presence of organotins in antifouling
coatings by January 2008.
The shipowners’ group will be expanded in coming years to
include all parties with vested interests in the issue, including
ports and paint manufacturers.
In the meantime, the lobbying campaign continues.
Greenpeace activists last week dredged toxic mud from harbour
basins in the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Zeebrugge to
highlight their campaign.
The mud was severely contaminated with TBT, a biocide which
is common in ship paints used to prevent marine organisms
fouling vessel hulls but can also cause severe adverse impacts
on the marine environment.
A spokesman for the Port of Rotterdam said the authority
supported a ban on TBT, not least because about 20m tonnes
of contaminated sediment dredged annually in routine maintenance
operations have to be disposed of as toxic waste, at the port’s
expense.
Greenpeace last week asked Sigma, one of the world’s biggest
manufacturers of ship paint, to stop using TBT as an antifouling
agent, but Sigma refused. A similar call to the European Paint
Producers Federation was also rebuffed.
Belgian and Flemish environment ministers on Friday appeared
to back the environmental group’s call. But the consortium
of TBT manufacturers last week told Lloyd’s List that the
proposed IMO convention, in its current form, was inadequate.
It raised concerns that some of the components of organotin-free
alternatives could also prove environmentally damaging.
The new shipowners’ group, however, is bound to create additional
momentum toward a global ban on organotin-free antifouling
alternatives and adherence to the dates proposed in the IMO
convention.
The WWF said number of other shipping lines were due to sign
up soon, but declined to provide names at this stage.
Other major shipping companies known to be publicly committed
to using environmentally-friendly antifouling paints include
Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Co, MOL and Cunard Line.
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