Insights · Regulation · Ship recycling
Every ship is eventually broken up, and for decades most of that work happened on tidal beaches in South Asia with little oversight. The Hong Kong Convention, in force since 26 June 2025, sets the first binding global rules for how a vessel reaches the end of its life.
A merchant ship is a working asset for perhaps twenty-five to thirty years. After that the steel is worth more than the vessel, and the ship is sold for demolition. The problem is what is locked inside that steel: asbestos lagging, PCBs in cabling and gaskets, heavy metals in paint and machinery, residual oils and fuels. For decades the industry's end-of-life problem was solved by selling old tonnage to cash buyers who beached the ships on the tidal flats of South Asia, where the hazards were cut out by hand with minimal protection. The Hong Kong Convention is the international community's attempt to put that process on the record.
Adopted at a diplomatic conference in 2009, the convention sat dormant for fifteen years because its entry-into-force conditions were deliberately demanding: it needed ratification by enough states, representing a large enough share of world tonnage, and crucially a large enough share of the world's recycling capacity. Those thresholds were finally met in 2023, and the convention entered into force on 26 June 2025.
The central instrument of the convention is the Inventory of Hazardous Materials. An IHM is a structured document — Part I lists the hazardous materials built into the ship's structure and equipment; Parts II and III cover operationally generated wastes and stores. For each entry it records the substance, its approximate quantity and its location, so that a recycling yard knows exactly what it will encounter before it makes the first cut.
Every ship in scope must carry an IHM and keep it current throughout its working life. New ships compile it during construction; existing ships build it through a survey of their structure and a review of their documentation. The inventory is verified by the ship's flag administration or a recognised classification society, which then issues an International Certificate on the Inventory of Hazardous Materials (ICIHM).
The convention drew a line at entry into force. Ships that already held an IHM on 26 June 2025 were compliant from day one. Everything else — the bulk of the trading fleet built before the rules bit — was given a five-year window. Existing ships must obtain their ICIHM no later than 26 June 2030, or at their next scheduled survey before that date.
| Milestone | Date | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Adopted | 2009 | Convention agreed in Hong Kong |
| Entry into force | 26 Jun 2025 | Rules become binding on parties |
| Existing-fleet deadline | 26 Jun 2030 | All in-scope ships must hold an ICIHM |
From 2030, in practice, the whole convention fleet of 500 gross tons and above carries a verified inventory. A buyer who looks up a vessel can treat the presence — or absence — of an IHM certificate as a signal of how cleanly that ship can be wound down.
The convention does not only regulate ships; it regulates the yards. A recycling facility must be authorised by the competent authority of its state and must maintain a Ship Recycling Facility Plan describing how it manages workers' safety and hazardous waste. For each ship it takes, the yard prepares a Ship Recycling Plan built around that vessel's specific IHM — matching the documented hazards to the way the ship will actually be dismantled.
The aim is that a ship designed and built today can be recycled at the end of its life without unacceptable risk to human health, safety and the environment. Hong Kong International Convention, IMO, 2009
The Hong Kong Convention is not the only regime in play. The European Union runs its own Ship Recycling Regulation, which has required an IHM for EU-flagged ships and for ships calling at EU ports since 2020 and maintains a list of approved facilities. Recycling is also touched by the Basel Convention on the transboundary movement of hazardous waste. For owners, the practical effect is that the IHM has become a standard document long before the global convention made it mandatory.
Ship recycling is the quiet end of the lifecycle that the ageing tanker problem eventually meets. A large share of the vessels heading for demolition are over twenty years old — the same cohort that dominates the harder-to-track end of the fleet. When you open a ship's file, its build year, flag and the regulations it falls under together tell you where it sits on that arc. On Marifest you can search any of 97,000+ vessels in the registry, read the specs and ownership that decide its recycling obligations, and check its standing against the sanctions and compliance lists in the same view. The terms in this article are defined in the maritime glossary.
How Marifest uses it
A vessel's age, flag and type decide which recycling rules it falls under. Marifest keeps every one of those fields on the open file, so the regulatory picture is there as soon as you open a ship.
Every vessel file shows when the hull was built, the single fact that places it on the recycling timeline and signals how close it is to demolition.
A ship's flag determines whether it falls under the Hong Kong Convention, the EU Ship Recycling Regulation, or both — and the flag is on the record.
Filtering the registry by age and type surfaces the over-twenty-year cohort that dominates the world's demolition queue.
Specs, ownership, flag and sanctions standing sit on the same page, so the recycling question never has to be answered in isolation.