A European Parliament committee has voted against letting two Indian shipbreaking yards onto the EU’s list of approved recycling facilities. It is a setback for shipowners who want more access to South Asian dismantling capacity, and the outcome matters across the region’s beaching yards, including Bangladesh’s.
What happened
- Yards: Shree Ram Vessel Scrap and YSI Recyclers, both in the Alang-Sosiya hub in Gujarat, India
- Background: the European Commission had proposed approving them after inspections under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation
- Vote: the Parliament’s environment committee backed an objection to that proposal this week
- Why it matters: they would have been the first facilities on the Indian subcontinent on the EU list. No yard in Bangladesh or elsewhere in the region is on it yet.
The objections
MEPs who opposed the move questioned whether yards using the beaching method, where ships are cut up on tidal shores, can properly control pollution and hazardous waste. They also raised concerns about what happens downstream, such as scrap steel sent to local re-rolling mills that have not been checked against EU industrial emissions standards. Campaigners cited environmental monitoring showing raised levels of copper, chromium, cadmium and mercury around Alang-Sosiya.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform welcomed the vote, saying that approving the yards despite shortcomings found in inspections would undermine the regulation’s environmental aims. Campaigners also argue that yards already on the EU list have more than 2 million light displacement tonnes of combined annual capacity, enough for recent volumes of EU-flagged and EU-owned ships.
The shipowners’ side
European shipowners’ association ECSA had urged MEPs to back the Commission, saying both yards were extensively inspected and found compliant. It warned that rejecting yards that passed the assessment would damage the regulation’s credibility.
What comes next
The committee vote is not the final word. The objection is expected to go to the full European Parliament later in November, and even then the Commission is not automatically required to withdraw its proposal. EU member states also have a say.
Under EU rules, EU-flagged commercial ships covered by the regulation must be recycled at yards on the approved list. Adding Indian yards would give owners more options and could change competition with approved yards in Europe and Turkey.
Based on reporting by Splash247, 6 November 2026.
Photo: Representative image: a ship recycling yard in Bangladesh (not the Alang yards). International Maritime Organization / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
