Study: EU Scraps Ships in South Asia While EU Capacity is Underutilized
The European Union (EU) is facing increased criticism for approving a growing number of ship dismantling and recycling facilities that largely remain idle while European end-of-life tonnage continues to be scrapped in South Asia’s yards. Environmental groups have increased their opposition after the European Union proposed including the first Indian recyclers on its approved list of facilities.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform has sustained its attack on the EU for sending ships to be dismantled in South Asia despite having sufficient domestic recycling capacity. The organization, in partnership with activist NGO Transport & Environment (T&E), released a new study that shows that recently, the EU has managed to increase the capacity of its ship recycling facilities.
Currently, they argue the EU has 30 yards with a combined capacity of approximately 1.3 million light displacement tonnes (LDT). But they highlight that the EU-located ship recycling facilities are underutilized, with a vast majority of the vessels owned or flagged in the EU being dismantled in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Between 2019 and 2025, they assert the EU utilized only five percent of its dismantling capacity.
The study shows that during the period, a total of 706 EU-flagged and/or EU-owned ships were dismantled worldwide, representing around 6.7 million LDT. Of the number, only 153 ships (22 percent) were recycled in an EU facility. In essence, this constitutes only five percent of the total tonnage. The groups argue that this is an indication that the EU continues to send end-of-life tonnage to be scrapped under poor environmental and safety standards in Asian countries.
The report calculates that during the same period, 345 EU-flagged and/or EU-owned ships representing 49 percent of the total were beached in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. That constituted 66 percent of total tonnage. The remaining ships were dismantled primarily in Turkey. The study indicates that 102 ships swapped their EU flag to another flag shortly before dismantling to avoid stricter EU rules.
“This is not just an environmental issue. It is a profound failure of EU industrial strategy, prioritizing strategic resilience and material autonomy on paper, while in reality letting valuable steel be lost to third markets,” said Philippine Bernard, NGO Shipbreaking Platform - Policy Officer.
The Platform is criticizing the EU for projecting double standards. Despite the EU’s Ship Recycling Regulation requiring EU-flagged vessels to use its approved facilities, it alleges that allowing scrapping in substandard yards in South Asia shows an inability or unwillingness to enforce the regulations.
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The latest study builds on a similar one published by the two NGOs in 2018 that also showed the EU has often had enough recycling capacity, both in terms of LDT and size, to recycle all EU-flagged vessels. The shipping industry, however, continues to argue that the approved list of yards lacks capacity, justifying the reflagging practices and pushing for the inclusion of South Asian beaching yards on the EU list.
The NGOs are pushing the EU to utilize its yards for tonnage scrapping at a time when the number of ships approaching the end of their life is expected to rise. Over the next decade, about 12,000 EU-owned ships are expected to be ready for recycling.
