A new study by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform and Transport & Environment (T&E) shows that the vast majority of EU-owned or EU-flagged ships are being scrapped under poor conditions in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, while ship recycling facilities located in the EU operate below capacity. The NGOs describe the situation as both an environmental scandal and a loss of high-quality materials for the EU economy, and their report concludes that the EU has enough domestic capacity to recycle all EU-flagged and EU-owned vessels.

Between 2019 and 2025, 706 EU-flagged and/or EU-owned ships were dismantled worldwide. Only 22% were recycled in EU-located facilities, representing just 5% of total tonnage. Nearly half were beached in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, accounting for 66% of total tonnage, while the remaining ships were dismantled mostly in Turkish shipbreaking yards.

"This is not just an environmental issue. It is a profound failure of EU industrial strategy, prioritising strategic resilience and material autonomy on paper, while in reality letting valuable steel be lost to third markets. The EU speaks of reducing dependence on imported critical materials, yet it lets its shipowners evade regulations and export millions of tonnes of recoverable steel that could be processed domestically. This is not strategic autonomy," says Philippine Bernard, Policy Officer at the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.

South Asian shipbreaking relies on beaching, with ships dismantled directly on the beach with no containment. The practice leads to water and ground contamination through the discharge of hazardous materials, and dangerous working conditions on tidal mudflats are also a major concern. The issue has long drawn international attention: the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, adopted in 2009, enters into force in June 2025, and critics have argued that its standards are less stringent than those required of EU-approved facilities.

The EU Waste Shipment Regulation prohibits ships becoming waste in EU waters from being exported to a non-OECD country, while the EU Ship Recycling Regulation requires EU-flagged vessels to use an EU-approved facility. In reality, most of the EU-owned fleet continues to be scrapped in substandard yards in South Asia, with shipowners either reflagging their ships or fraudulently claiming to continue operations to evade waste export restrictions. As a result, the EU continues to export toxic waste in the form of end-of-life vessels. As many as 102 ships swapped their EU flag for another flag shortly before dismantling to avoid EU restrictions.

In July, the European Commission announced plans to add the first beaching ship recycling facilities to the EU's approved list. According to the Shipbreaking Platform and T&E, this will make it easier to dump ships overseas. EU-based yards operate under high environmental and labour standards, and approving substandard beaching yards would penalise responsible European industry while rewarding harmful practices that are effectively not permitted in EU Member States.

In 2020, the year with the largest number of ships dismantled worldwide, EU facilities had an overall recycling capacity of 2.1 million light displacement tonnes (LDT), while EU-owned ships dismantled that year amounted to 1.4 million LDT. Over two-thirds of EU-owned tonnage was dismantled on beaches in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and every vessel beached could have been accommodated by a minimum of 6 to 8 EU yards.

The report notes that with some EU-flagged vessels also being EU-owned, some ships are counted twice, meaning the overall LDT of ships dismantled each year is most likely overestimated — which only reinforces the conclusion that the EU has sufficient recycling capacity.

Up to 95% of the weight of a ship can be recycled as high-quality scrap steel. In a previous report, the Shipbreaking Platform concluded that almost 12,000 EU-owned ships would reach end of life in the next decade, which could yield up to 12 million tonnes of steel yearly, representing a major economic opportunity for shipbreaking in Europe.

"Secondary steel production via electric arc furnaces using recycled scrap is one of the most effective pathways to decarbonise the sector. By outsourcing its valuable scrap, the EU is starving its own green steel transition of feedstock," says Benedetta Mantoan, Policy Manager at the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. Steelmaking is one of the most carbon-intensive industrial processes in Europe, and recycled scrap processed in electric arc furnaces carries a substantially lower carbon footprint than primary production from iron ore — making end-of-life ships a potentially significant feedstock for the EU's stated decarbonisation goals.

The NGOs argue that persisting policy gaps prevent ship recycling from aligning with the strategic plans of the Union. Beaching, considered the most dangerous shipbreaking method, must be explicitly banned rather than authorised on the basis of shipowners' false claims of insufficient EU capacity. The EU must align reality with its declared circularity and decarbonisation pledges; without closing gaps such as re-flagging to flags of convenience, ambitious plans will remain, in their words, wishful thinking. The NGOs also call on the EU to continue actively promoting and supporting best practices in the ship recycling sector to ensure a global level playing field. Whether the Commission proceeds with listing beaching yards on the EU-approved list, and how the newly effective Hong Kong Convention interacts with stricter EU rules, are the key policy developments to watch in the months ahead.

Source: NGO Shipbreaking Platform