Hyundai Vinashin caught dumping waste

Mike Grinter in Hong Kong - Friday 25 July 2008

Hyundai Vinashin: given three year deadline to clean up waste. Hyundai Vinashin: given three year deadline to clean up waste.

HYUNDAI Vinashin, the Vietnamese-based shipbuilder and shiprepairer has pledged to dispose of 700,000 tonnes of copper slag after becoming embroiled in a toxic waste scandal. 

A spokesman for the joint venture shipyard established in 1999 in Khan Hoa province by South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo and domestic partner Vietnam Shipbuilding told Lloyd’s List: “We started using nix (copper) blasting technology in our ship repair operations in 1999. However, questions surrounding the environmental impact arose last year due to the large amount of used nix.” 

In November last year, Vietnam’s deputy prime minister Hoang Trung Hai gave Hyundai Vinashin a three-year deadline to clean up its 700,000 tonnes of copper slag waste. 

While the shipyard switched to hydro-blasting in August 2007 and subsequently bowed out of shiprepair altogether as the demand for newbuildings boomed, the waste remained. 

Hyundai Vinashin’s spokesperson said: “This means we will not be carrying out shiprepair business in the foreseeable future and we shall be getting rid of the nix material over a two-year period through an arrangement we have with a recycling plant that is currently being built in the north of the country.” 

Unfortunately, things came to a head on July 8 when environmental inspectors caught trucking companies contracted by the shipyard about to dump 60 tonnes of waste near a local residential community. 

Hyundai Vinashin claim the waste came from a floating dock recently delivered to the yard by Vietnamese Shipping Lines. The yard’s administrative manager Chung Seong Doo said it had arranged to dump the waste at the site after its materials staff stated that the waste was “normal” and harmless mud and rust. But the provincial department of Natural Resources and Environment subsequently found the waste to be hazardous. 

The extent of the toxicity has not been revealed but Hyundai Vinashin was subsequently fined just $600. 

Meanwhile, on July 9 companies allegedly employed to recycle the shipyard’s waste had their operations suspended by police. The Veteran 394 Joint Stock Company has been accused of building an environmentally harmful scrap recycling workshop that did not comply with the designs the firm had submitted to obtain permits. 

Tan Huy, a second company under investigation has been accused of opening a steel processing and production line, with Hyundai Vinashin as its main customer, before receiving its environmental certificate.

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