For Immediate Release

Rio de Janeiro, Brussels, Izmir. 4 August 2022. Reports from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil confirm that the sister ship of the infamous aircraft carrier CLEMENCEAU, formerly known as French warship FOCH, and most recently named the SÃO PAULO, has now been placed under tow on a 6000-mile journey to Aliaga, Turkey, where it is to be scrapped. Environmental groups around the world are denouncing Brazil’s export and disposal plans in Turkey as illegal and unsafe.

Aircraft Carrier SÃO PAULO being hooked to towing vessel The Alp Centre, 4 August 2022, Rio de Janeiro in preparation for 6000-mile journey to Turkish scrapyards.

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform, Basel Action Network (BAN), BAN Asbestos France, Henri Pézerat association (work, Health, environment), International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS), İstanbul Isig Meclisi, and Brazilian ABREA have called upon President Macron to take responsibility for the ship and direct it to safe and legal recycling or reuse (as France did with the sister carrier the CLEMENCEAU in 2006). At that time, France exported the CLEMENCEAU to India, only to admit that the export was illegal under the EU Waste Shipment Regulation. Consequently, President Jacques Chirac ordered its return to France.  

"History is sadly repeating itself. In 2006, the Indian Supreme Court and the French Conseil d’Etat required France to take into account international law concerning the dismantling of the Clemenceau," said Annie Thébaud-Mony, for Ban Asbestos-France Association. "Will it be necessary for the citizen movement of many countries concerned to plead again in court in 2022 to respect international law and respect of occupational and environmental health?"

This time, according to environmental organizations, the movement of the SÃO PAULO from Brazil to Turkey, is also illegal, as it violates the 1996 Izmir Protocol (Protocol on the Prevention of Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea by Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal), of the Barcelona Convention which does not allow hazardous wastes to enter the Mediterranean Sea unless they are to be destined to an EU country for recycling or disposal. The export of the ship also violates the Basel Convention as Brazil has failed to recognize the Izmir Protocol that imposes a ban on Turkey and has failed to notify and receive the consent of the potential transit states Spain, Morocco, and the UK at the Strait of Gibraltar. Further, the NGOs claim that the IHM (inventory of hazardous materials) is suspected of being a gross underestimation as it claims levels of asbestos, PCBs, and other toxic materials at levels far below what was found on the CLEMENCEAU.

In 2000, the French Navy sold the aircraft carrier SÃO PAULO to Brazil. Last year, the Brazilian navy decided to scrap the vessel, and it was auctioned off to a Turkish shipbreaking yard, Sök Denizcilik and Ticaret Limited. The SÃO PAULO, as did the CLEMENCEAU, contains large amounts of hazardous substances such as asbestos, PCBs, and toxic paints within its structure, qualifying it under international law as hazardous waste and thus subject to special trade controls. The NGOs alerted the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and the Brazilian Basel Convention Competent Authority (IBAMA) about the legal, environmental, and health risks linked to breaking the vessel in Turkey. So far, the two governments have rebuffed the NGOs and ignored the claims of legal violations. Yesterday, the NGO Basel Action Network answered IBAMAs official response with an open letter, urging Brazil to respect international law and delay the export until a legal and safe solution can be found.  

"What Turkey and Brazil are doing can best be called state-sponsored criminal waste trafficking," said Jim Puckett, Director of the Basel Action Network (BAN). "We have cited chapter and verse of their treaty violations and yet they've responded with the bureaucratic equivalent of a shrug. As we were forced to do with the CLEMENCEAU, we will have to rely on the citizens of multiple countries and responsible governments around the world to enforce the treaty obligations of Turkey and Brazil."   

The consultant Grieg Green had prepared the Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM) for the SÃO PAULO. NGOs now raise serious concerns that this IHM has missed identifying large amounts of asbestos, PCBs, and radioactive contamination. Comparing the IHM of the SÃO PAULO with the one that Bureau Veritas issued for the CLEMENCEAU, there is not only a big discrepancy in terms of the amounts of hazardous materials identified but also in terms of rooms and tanks that have been sampled. On the Sao Paulo 12% of the rooms were sampled, comparing to 82% of the rooms on the CLEMENCEAU.

In view of the large amounts of asbestos and other hazardous materials embedded within the vessel’s structure, local civil society groups, political leaders, technical experts, and union organizers in Turkey are now stepping out in strong opposition to the import of the vessel to Turkey. Turkish environmental organizations such as ALÇEP, FOÇEP, EGECEP, IA and Polen Ecology in Izmir, intend to use their constitutional right to life and the environment, to impede the dismantling of the São Paulo.

"Despite the claims that all is well in Turkish shipbreaking yards, the massive amounts of asbestos, toxic paints, and PCBs have a deadly impact on workers, their families and on the communities where the removed toxic materials and paint-laden steel are smelted," said Asli Odman of the Istanbul Health and Safety Labour Watch. "There are long-lasting environmental and social rights violations taking place in and around Aliağa, and this time, the populations of Aliağa and İzmir are organizing energetically against this import and the lack of accountability in the shipbreaking sector."

Now that Brazil has rebuffed the call to halt the export of the ship, the NGOs are now calling on French President Macron to buy back their old ship and once again take responsiblity for its safe and legal recycling. Read the full letter to the President here.

email: jpuckett@ban.org

email: info@shipbreakingplatform.org

email: annie.mony@gmail.com

email: asli.odman@msgsu.edu.tr

Founded in 1997, the Basel Action Network is a 501(c)3 charitable organization of the United States, based in Seattle, WA. BAN is the world's only organization focused on confronting the global environmental justice and economic inefficiency of toxic trade and its devastating impacts. Today, BAN serves as the information clearinghouse on the subject of waste trade for journalists, academics, and the general public. Through its investigations, BAN uncovered the tragedy of hazardous electronic waste dumping in developing countries. For more information, see www.BAN.org.

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform is a coalition of environmental, human and labour rights organisations, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. For more than 10 years, we have been fighting for shipbreaking workers’ right to a safe job, the use of best available technologies, and for equally protective environmental standards globally. With a broad base of support both geographically and in orientation we challenge the arguments of a powerful shipping industry not used to being held accountable for its substandard practices. We raise public awareness of the human rights abuses and pollution caused by shipbreaking, and seek to prompt both policies and marketplace incentives to divert traffic away from the infamous breaking beaches. Our goal is to find sustainable solutions that encompass the principles of human rights, corporate accountability, environmental justice, “polluter pays”, producer responsibility and clean production.