Victory for Greenpeace

While the Rainbow Warrior is still anchored at high seas, a lot of things are happening on land. Today we heard that the Minister of Environment demanded to conduct a inspection of the Genova Bridge to see what toxic materials are on board. At the 12th of November we identified this ship on the beach with our toxic patrol. Although the ship is already beached, it now cannot be scrapped before this inspection has been taken place. This is a great success for us! One of the headlines in a newspaper was: "Victory for Greenpeace: UK ship to be inspected". It's great to see that our work is appreciated and is starting to bring results.

We have also heard that the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (the government environmental agency) will open an office at the shipbreaking yard in Alang. Until now they only had an office that was five hours from Alang. This agency has never been involved in inspecting the beached ships, but from now on they'll be involved.

The Minister of Environment also stated that the shipbreaking guidelines proposed by the Supreme Court of India now will be implemented as obligatory. Until now these guidelines have been voluntary. So hopefully this decision will result in toxic-free ships arriving in Alang!