Inventory of Hazardous Materials
| Hong Kong International Convention for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships | |
|---|---|
| Signed | 15 May 2009 |
| Location | Hong Kong |
| Effective | not effective |
| Condition | 15 ratifications, representing 40% of the world merchant shipping by gross tonnage, and on average 3% of recycling tonnage for the previous 10 years |
| Signatories | 5 |
| Parties | 6 |
| Depositary | Secretary-General of IMO |
| Languages | Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish |
The Hong Kong International Convention for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships, or Hong Kong Convention is a mulitateral convention adopted in 2009, which has not entered into force. The conference that created the convention was attended 63 countries, and overseen by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which is a specialist agency of the United Nations (U.N).
The convention has been designed to try to improve the health and safety of current ship breaking practices. At present, this is a very dangerous practice, whereby large ships are beached and then dismantled by hand by workers with very little personal protective equipment (PPE). This is most common in Asia, with India, Bangladesh, China, and Pakistan holding the largest ship breaking yards.
The Hong Kong Convention recognised that ship recycling is the most environmentally sound way to dispose of a ship at the end of its life, as most of the ship's materials can be reused. However, it sees current methods as unacceptable. The work sees many injuries and fatalities to workers, as they lack the correct safety equipment to handle the large ship correctly as it is dismantled and most vessels contain a large amount of hazardous materials such as asbestos, PCBs, TBT, and CFCs, which can also lead to highly life-threatening diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer.
The Inventory of Hazardous Materials has been designed to try to minimise the dangers of these hazards. The Convention defines a hazard as: “any material or substance which is liable to create hazards to human health and/or the environment".
All vessels over 500 gross tonnes (GT) that are in commercial service (the convention does not apply to warships or naval auxiliary or ships operating their whole life only in waters subject to the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the State whose flag the ship is entitled to fly) will have to comply with the convention once it comes into force. Each party that does wish to comply must restrict the use of hazardous materials on all ships that fly the flag of that party.
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