South Africa commences “green” ship recycling facility

South Africa plans the construction of a "green" ship recycling facility to be called 34South, which will be located along the West coast of South Africa in the Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone.

Accordingly, the facility will be located in the Saldanha Bay Industrial Development Zone, offering a prime location for end-of-life vessels passing through the Cape of Good Hope and bypassing the tolls of the Suez Canal.

The majority of the world's ships are scrapped on tidal flats in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, with limited local regulation of their environmental impact and the conditions for their migrant labor force. Though they pay far more per tonne than more highly-regulated competitors elsewhere, only a handful are compliant with the Hong Kong Convention on ship recycling (HKC).

The 34South facility would make use of a ship lift to bring each vessel out of the water, keeping the vessel's contents away from the sea and achieving containment during scrapping. Moreover, the ship lift system would be able to accommodate more than one vessel at a time for economies of scale. It has the backing of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) of South Africa, its largest shareholder, according to Yaa Agyare-Dwomoh, a consulting analyst with Frost & Sullivan Africa.