“Having spent the last eight years undertaking hazardous materials assessments on a range of vessels throughout Australasia, I can attest that I do not believe I have ever found a vessel of any type or age, including at least one new building, which does not contain some amount of asbestos-contaminated material in its plant or structure.” (Nick Bennett, Lloyds List: http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/sector/regulation/article344717.ece?service=print)

Asbestos, and its dangers, have now been known for a substantial amount of time. This has led to the closing of asbestos mines and the banning of its use in construction. However, in developing countries, the substance is still mined, and still used.

Considering the very serious dangers that asbestos can cause, such as mesothelioma and lung cancer which cannot be cured and promise only very quick deterioration and death, it is seriously shocking that the substance is still present in ships all over the world.

Even though a vessel may, since January 1^st 2005, been built without asbestos containing products, a problem arises as ships travel the world, often to ports in developing countries, where they can pick up asbestos laden products and fittings.

In his article for Lloyds List, Nick Bennett states that this is made much worse by those companies offering asbestos-free certificates “who simply do not have the expertise or necessary independence to make such attestations for which the end user should be reliant. The solution is for shipowners, operators and class societies to only accept asbestos certification from independent and appropriately skilled providers – especially where asbestos registers and risk assessment are undertaken.

Lucion Marine is fully accredited by Lloyds Register to provide Green Passports/Inventories of Hazardous Materials to vessels, as well as being accredited to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 for the management of asbestos. Our company is also highly experienced in working with asbestos for over eight years. All of our site team members are qualified with P402 certificates or higher.

Ship owners need to become more aware of the presence of asbestos on ships, as an increasing amount of the worlds ports will now turn away newbuild ships that do not possess the correct asbestos surveys to prove they are asbestos free “a newbuilding containing any asbestos is classified as a prohibited import” (http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/sector/regulation/article344717.ece?service=print). This has already becoming the case in the E.U, where as of 1^st January 2011 the results of all safety inspections at E.U. ports will be published publically online, and those who perform poorly for 3 months or more can face being banned from all ports in the E.U.

Australia has also warned ship owners to have asbestos checks carried out on ships before coming to port in Australia because if their checks are not sufficient or they are a newbuild from after the 1^st January 2005 that contains asbestos they will be turned away, and they have already began to implement this rule, with ships already turned away. “The government is very clear on its position on this that new vessels must not have asbestos in place” (http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/sector/ship-operations/article344743.ece)

To find out how you can protect your vessels and workers, whilst also ensuring you will gain access to all ports world wide, contact Lucion.