The shame of shipowners as Germany tops list for worst scrapping practices

© Bayazid Akter

Somehow, you’d never think that Germany would top any list for bad environmental practices. And yet, in ship scrapping, it does. German shipowners have the “worst ship-breaking practices among all shipping nations” according to the NGO, Shipbreaking Platform. 98 of the country’s 100 ships which were sold for scrap last year ended up on beaches in south Asia. The Germans have blamed a lack of ship-breaking yards elsewhere – but of course it is also considerably cheaper to use India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, than it is to use, for example, Turkey.