The government of Turkey decided this Friday (26th) to veto the access of the Brazilian aircraft carrier São Paulo to the country, in response to complaints by environmental organizations about illegal export of toxic waste on the vessel, sold by the Navy to a dismantling company. ships.
The aircraft carrier left Brazil at the beginning of the month, shortly before a court injunction that prevented its departure, and has been monitored in real time by Greenpeace. In Turkey, his imminent arrival was the target of protests.
Turkey’s Ministry of the Environment said the decision was taken after the Brazilian government refused to carry out a new analysis of the existence of asbestos and other dangerous substances on the ship.
The request was made at the beginning of the month, but the Brazilian government, through Ibama, claimed that the vessel is already in international waters. “Thus, the ship will not be allowed to enter Turkish territorial waters,” Turkey said in a statement released on Friday. When contacted, the institute did not respond.
The initial analysis, carried out by the Norwegian company Grieg Green, is questioned by environmental organizations, as it indicated a much lower amount of asbestos than that found on a twin aircraft carrier, the Clemenceau, which belonged to the French navy.
Clemenceau, says the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, had 760 tonnes of asbestos. The report on São Paulo estimates just under 10 tons. Shipbreaking claims that the company responsible for the analysis itself acknowledged that it did not have access to all areas of the vessel.
The São Paulo aircraft carrier was sold for R$10.5 million to the shipyard Sök Denizcilik and Ticaret Limited, which specializes in recycling naval material. This Friday, he was near the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, according to monitoring by Greenpeace.
The vessel was the largest Brazilian warship, with 31 thousand tons, 266 meters in length and capacity for up to 40 aircraft. Its armament consisted of three dual missile launchers and large-caliber machine guns.
Built in the late 1950s, it was initially named Foch and, after joining the French fleet, arrived in Brazil in 2001. It operated until 2017, when the Navy decided to sell the vessel.
The imbroglio involving the sale of São Paulo dates back to that time. First, environmental organizations managed to convince the government to restrict Asian shipyards from participating in the auction, limiting the bid to companies that meet European standards for handling toxic waste.
Afterwards, the São Paulo-Foch Institute, an association created by the military Emerson Miúra, tried to dispute the ship, with the aim of transforming it into a floating museum, inspired by the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, anchored in New York.
Miúra says he managed to get funding for the project, but the Navy did not allow the institute to participate in the auction. “We would be preserving the last aircraft carrier in Brazil and the only one in the Navy”, he defends.
The ship left Brazil on the 4th. On the same day, Miúra obtained an injunction in the Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro preventing the trip. When notified, the Navy informed that the request could not be accepted because the vessel was already in international waters.
Nicola Mulinares, Communications Director and Political Adviser at Shipbreaking Platform, says that the ship’s transport violates Basel accord rules, due to flaws in the characterization of toxic waste and lack of warning to the countries in whose waters it will sail until it reaches Turkey. .
The export was authorized by Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), in a process that is also questioned. “We have been communicating with Brazilian authorities for years, including Ibama and the Navy, on this topic,” says Mulinares.
“They were and are well aware of significant amounts of toxics located within structures on the aircraft carrier, which are nowhere near the numbers indicated in the most recent hazardous materials inventory,” he says. “São Paulo should immediately return to Brazil.”
Cormack Maritima’s lawyer, who acted as Sok’s representative after the ship’s purchase, Alex Christo Brahov says that the amount of asbestos in the vessel is irrelevant, as the Basel convention prohibits the export of the material.
“It doesn’t matter if there are 9 or 900 tons. It would have to be removed here and given a destination here”, he says. The text determines, for example, that signatory countries guarantee that the export of toxic waste is reduced to the minimum possible and that the materials are properly disposed of.
Responsible for the ship’s toxic waste inventory, Grieg Green says that there are usually restrictions on access for analysis on ships that are out of operation, due to hazards from hazardous gases or lack of oxygen.
“As São Paulo was out of operation for about ten years, several areas were closed or inaccessible to researchers,” he said, in a note sent to Sheet. In the text, the company says it cannot specify how much of the area of the ship was inspected.
According to Grieg Green, the analysis was hampered by the limited access to the ship’s original documentation, given its age. “Military vessels often have restrictions on sharing documentation,” she adds.
THE Sheet tried to contact the Navy and Ibama by email and phone, but there was no response until publication. Sok was contacted by email and also did not respond.
