In defiance of environmentalist warnings that the rusted 1960s French-built aircraft carrier would pollute the ocean and marine food chain, Brazil sank a decommissioned aircraft carrier off its northeast coast. Due to its environmental hazards, Turkey refused the 32,000-tonne carrier entry for scrapping there and towed it back to Brazil.
The Navy said in a statement that the sinking was “planned and controlled,” which prevented economic, logistical, and operational losses to Brazil. A 350-kilometer (217-mile) stretch of Brazilian waters where the sea is 5,000 meters deep was chosen to minimize impacts on fishing and ecosystems, and the hull of the Sao Paulo was sunk there.
According to Pepe Rezende, a defense expert, and former congressional staffer, the Brazilian Navy bought the ship for just $12 million in 1998 but never completed the $80 million refit. The Turkish marine recycling company Sök Denizcilik Tic Sti bought the hull after the carrier was decommissioned for $10.5 million. However, Turkey denied it access to its shipyard, so the hull had to be towed back across the Atlantic.
Under the 1989 Basel Convention on the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes, Zilan Costa e Silva, the company’s legal representative in Brazil, said the Brazilian state was responsible for disposing of the carrier. Based on Greenpeace’s analysis, the sinking violated the London Convention on Marine Pollution, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, and the Basel Convention on Oceans.
According to the Brazilian Navy, the company had been asked to fix the carrier at a Brazilian shipyard, but after being inspected and revealed that it was taking on water, the Navy banned the Sao Paulo from entering its ports, deciding to sink it.
