Search

The Turkish Merchant Shipping Industry has recently witnessed an increasing awareness of the importance to minimize environmental pollution and fuel oil consumption. Together with certain non-governmental organizations and media concerns about environmental protection, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has been strict on controlling undesirable effects on the environment and, consequently, forcing shipping companies to minimize their emissions. Besides, today’s highly advanced technology companies over the world have developed various innovative systems that can be utilized to minimize carbon emission, thus giving assurance to relevant investors that their investments are most likely to turn out well with a considerable financial gain in the short or long term. Despite all such favorable developments, in a general look, shipping companies seem reluctant in making use of technologies providing efficiency in energy consumption. This reluctance has eventually brought about the term “Energy Efficiency Gap”. This research conducts a questionnaire, created by Acciaro et al. [1], among the shipping companies in Turkey. 20 respondent companies, who represent 26 percent of the Turkish owned merchant marine fleet of over 1000 gross tonnage in terms of deadweight cargo capacity, participated in the research. The Pearson correlation analysis was used, and interpretations were made according to the obtained statistical values. The aim of the research was to identify reasons and points restraining the use of new technologies regarding energy efficiency, as well as to develop proposals for the innovators in this field about how to overcome this handicap concerning technical and managerial aspects of gaining energy efficiency.

The average age of the global merchant fleet has been declining with the increasing number of new ship constructions and dismantled ships. Although a noteworthy part of ship dismantling and recycling (SDR) facilities have been performed in Asian countries, such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, SDR facilities have also been increasing in Türkiye. SDR facilities provide substantial economic income and employment opportunities. However, SDR facilities should have been performed in a certain systematic framework by taking necessary precautions since toxic substances from dismantled ships affect the environment and employees' health. That's why maritime authorities make an effort to sustain the SDR facilities in the best way in the sense of safety, health, and environment through the European Union (EU) Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR), Basel Convention, and Hong Kong Convention (HKC). In this paper, the global SDR facilities have been evaluated in terms of ship types and their gross tonnages (GTs) over the past 5 years among the leading countries. The number, type, economic life span, steel weight, and light displacement tonnage (LDT) of dismantled ships have been analyzed in Türkiye, especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic process. To determine the most effective year in terms of SDR, the weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) method has been utilized based on scrap steel price, LDT, economic life span, number of dismantled ships, and steel structure weight coefficient of the ship by maritime experts. The year 2017 has been highlighted as the most effective year with a .909 rank value in the last 5 years. In addition to analysis results, the largest amount of scrap steel has been acquired from dry cargo ships, which is the most dismantled ship type under data getting from the SDR facilities in Türkiye. Temporary bans on cruises due to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused more than triple increments in the number of passenger ships (PS) dismantling. This paper will be a quite notable resource for experts, academics, and industry stakeholders in order to explore and compare the SDR process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]