Ship scrapping out of control. The European Union is helpless against Asian, Turkish, and European shipyards [MARKET ANALYSIS]
By The 15th list of the European List of Ship Recycling Yards has been in force since January 1, 2026. For years, the European Commission has been encouraging European shipowners to choose Asian and Turkish shipyards for their ships, primarily on the beaches of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey.
In many cases, shipyards suffer from poor worker and environmental protection. European Commission officials appear to be unaware of these threats. Just as production shipyards have lost their market to Asian producers, the opportunity to obtain materials from ship recycling on a significant scale has also been lost.
– By sending ships to scrapyards, shipowners are avoiding their obligations under the EU Waste Shipment Regulation by failing to declare their intention to dispose of their assets and even providing authorities with false documents regarding their continued use to conceal their true intentions. Failure to extend the scope of these regulations weakens the EU’s ability to maintain control over its own material flows and undermines investments in high-quality ship recycling capacity, representatives of Recycling Europe, EUROFER, and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform said in a press release dated December 15, 2025.
Shipbreaking yards are operating at full capacity, polluting the environment with waste oil and other chemicals, damaging wildlife and beaches while recovering secondary raw materials from ships. Therefore, at the end of December 2025, Shipbreaking Platform, a Brussels-based NGO, urged: “We call on the EU to remove all Turkish ship recycling yards using the beaching method, support the exclusion of Indian yards that beach ships, and call on the EU to support capacity development in line with circular economy and decarbonization goals.”
Ship Scrapping Prices in 2025. Source: goShipping
Asian Ship Scrapping Yards Beat the EU on Prices and Marketing
The prices at Asian ship scrapping yards remain attractive to European shipowners. These appeals are therefore fully justified, as operators flying European flags often resort to selling a ship to an operator who then changes the ship’s name. The ship is then flown under a flag of convenience or a false flag and sent to a scrapping yard that fails to adhere to basic safety and environmental protection standards. In the worst-rated shipyards, oil and chemicals are spilled on beaches or discharged into the sea. There are also shipyards that strive to meet minimum safety and marine environmental protection standards.
However, the profit motive continues to prevent the basic requirements for ship recycling, as defined in the Hong Kong Declaration, from being met. The community activists running Shipbreaking Platform note this and announce in a press release: “We welcome the decision to close the Dörtel shipbreaking yard in Aliağa, Turkey. An inspection by the Commission revealed that the ship was dismantled while it was still partially submerged, and the facility was not equipped with an impermeable base or slag trap.”
This method of dismantling ships, which are partially beached, leads to seawater pollution. This type of dismantling ignores basic requirements for the safe dismantling of on-board spaces, as well as technical equipment and engine rooms. A few years ago, CNN reported that passenger ships were being scrapped on a massive scale in Turkey. The ships were washed ashore and partially submerged. This requires a significant number of workers to manually salvage equipment from cabins, galleys, laundries, swimming pools, amusement parks, and shops.
A map of shipbreaking yards with the number of ships and fatalities since 2019. Source: Shipbreaking Platform
Shipyards under scrutiny
These massive ships were previously the pride of cruise fleets, including Carnival Cruise Line. Now they are mere shadows of their former selves – washed ashore at a shipyard in Aliağa, Turkey.” During the pandemic, as cruise operators were disposing of ships, Aliağa saw a 30% increase in turnover, Reuters reported. “Drone footage of the shipyard shows zombie cruise ships – half an impressive ship, half a skeleton and half a wreck,” CNN’s Francesca Street described the situation on a Turkish beach.
For many ships, the final one-way voyage to the scrapyard means jobs for the local population and profits for the shipyard owner. But the profits are disproportionate to the costs and environmental damage in the area around Aliağa or similar scrapyards, such as Alang in India or Gadani, located near the Pakistani port of Karachi.
Shipyards that have not properly organized the collection and processing of hazardous waste are generally removed from the European Commission’s lists, and therefore, have not been met. Shipbreaking Platform believes that “Although the decision to remove the Dörtel ship recycling yard in Aliağa, Turkey is a step in the right direction, we consider it insufficient.”
EU Double Standards
Ingvild Jenssen, Executive Director and founder of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, stated that “approving shipyards in third world countries that would never be permitted to operate in the European Union creates a double standard that undermines not only the position of shipowners who have already invested in truly sustainable methods.” This effectively leads to the acceptance of double standards in the European Union.
Such inconsistent decisions disadvantage shipyard owners who actually ensure environmentally friendly and environmentally sound recycling of end-of-life ships. Jenssen notes that “Rather than lamenting the exclusion of onshore shipbreaking yards, claiming they have no other option, shipowners should actively participate in building the capacity necessary for the sustainable recycling of their assets.”
“There is no better time than now to create cross-sectoral synergies with the steel and construction sectors to support the circular economy and ensure the availability of industrial platforms for dismantling all types of ships,” emphasizes the founder of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
Most shipyards are effectively exempt from environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedures. In Turkey, ships are dismantled using the partial shore dismantling method, which is neither practiced nor permitted in the EU. The Ship Recycling Group recommends that practices prohibited in the EU be prohibited elsewhere. This will avoid double standards in ship scrapping.
Ship Recycling Market 2013-2024. Źródło: Shipbreaking Platform
For a Level Playing Field for European Recycling
The World Shipping Council (WSC) also believes that implementing the same rigorous and evidence-based criteria at all shipyards, regardless of whether they are located in the European Union or outside it, strengthens the credibility of the list of facilities approved for recycling. Above all, it ensures a level playing field for those shipyards that adhere to environmental standards. It also disseminates good practices and supports the continuous improvement of ship recycling processes in various regions of the world.
Consistent action by the European Commission can increase stakeholder confidence in the use of ship dismantling facilities in compliance with standards that ensure environmental sustainability and worker protection. The WSC emphasized that the EU should cooperate within a global framework, such as the Hong Kong International Convention. The World Shipping Council (WSC) represents over 90% of the global potential of containership and car carrier operators.
WSC notes that “As globalization in ship scrapping increases, ensuring consistency between the EU Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR) and the Hong Kong Convention and Basel Conventions is becoming increasingly important.” According to shipping companies, the ship recycling process requires “transparency for shipowners and authorities,” and it is also essential to “establish a strong and globally transparent standard.” This simply means implementing what has already been established, namely the conventions that define the framework for the operation of ship scrapping facilities.
“Technological advances, evolving environmental regulations, ageing ships, and rising maintenance costs are predicting an increase in ship scrapping between 2025 and 2040, with a five-fold increase by 2033, significantly increasing the availability of secondary raw materials from end-of-life ships,” Recycling Europe, EUROFER, and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform announced in a joint statement on December 15, 2025.
The aim is therefore to “as the number of end-of-life ships increases—many of which are owned by EU/EFTA shipowners—ensure that ship recycling practices are consistent with environmental objectives, protect the health and safety of workers, and support the EU’s goals of the circular economy, decarbonization, and competitiveness.”
The statement suggests that environmentally friendly ship recycling could be particularly beneficial for the European steel industry. The European steel industry is undergoing a significant transformation and is becoming increasingly sustainable. It is expected that it will increasingly use products based on secondary raw materials. – Ship recycling is an opportunity to support the transformation of the European steel industry – say representatives of Recycling Europe, EUROFER and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
90% of ships scrapped on beaches in Asia and Turkey
The opportunity to obtain materials from ship recycling on a significant scale was lost many years ago. EU recycling has practically disappeared from the market for extracting secondary materials from ships. Currently, 90% of the world’s end-of-life ships are dismantled on beaches in South Asia and Turkey, where the infrastructure does not meet the required standards for this task. A “lack of protective equipment and inadequate management of hazardous waste” are glaring, leading to significant environmental damage, widespread occupational illnesses, and worker deaths.
“These practices clearly contradict the objectives of international environmental agreements, such as the Basel Convention, to which the EU remains strongly committed. Many EU/EFTA ships end up on these beaches due to legal loopholes, weak enforcement, and an uneven playing field in the global market,” according to Recycling Europe, EUROFER, and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
Competition from Asian and Turkish shipyards, which do not comply with applicable environmental regulations, has led to a decline in ship recycling facilities in the EU. Therefore, EU recycling organizations are calling for: “The EU must reverse this trend and ensure that end-of-life EU/EFTA ships are dismantled and recycled within the EU.”
It has been calculated that “70% to 95% of a ship’s weight can be recovered and processed into high-quality secondary raw material. As the transformation of the European steel sector will increase demand for high-quality secondary raw materials, ship recycling represents a strategic opportunity.”
The authors of the appeal state that “EU/EFTA ships that will be recycled in the coming decade represent over 136 million LDT and, once processed, could provide over 100 million tons of secondary raw materials.” This action could support the decarbonization of the steel industry by reducing reliance on virgin raw materials.
Once melted, each ton of secondary raw material (iron scrap) saves approximately 1.6 tons (for carbon steel) and 5 tons (for stainless steel) of CO2 emissions by replacing emissions from primary iron production, and also avoids the consumption of 1.4 tons of iron ore, 740 kg of coal, and 120 kg of limestone.
Ship recycling can therefore function in the European Union if the European Commission and European shipowners consistently comply with the regulations they themselves have established and which they expect from port authorities, agents, and freight forwarders. Currently, the effectiveness of EU ship recycling regulations is subject to double standards. Simply put, it is sabotaged by legal loopholes. Shipowners intending to decommission a ship often change their register to a non-EU one at the last minute. Or they take a more convoluted approach and sell the ship to an operator who directly sends the ship to a scrap yard. In both cases, this circumvents EU environmental and safety requirements.