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In Living Memory

Factual: History

In Living Memory: Series 16

In Living Memory: Series 16: Episode 2

Episode 2

Series 16

BBC Radio 4 - In Living Memory, Series 16, Episode 2

History documentary on the American 'ghost ships' sent to be scrapped in Britain in 2003.

Contemporary history series. Jolyon Jenkins asks what happened to the 'ghost ships' - the elderly American warships controversially sent to be scrapped in Hartlepool in 2003.

In 2003, a waste disposal firm in Hartlepool got a contract to dismantle 13 elderly American naval ships that had been rusting away in a river in Virginia. The ships had asbestos on them, as well as PCBs. When local environmental groups heard of the plan there was uproar. The vessels were dubbed the "ghost ships" and described as "toxic timebombs". It turned out that the Hartlepool firm did not have the required planning permission to dismantle them, and the Environment Agency told the American government not to send the ships. But four of them set off across the Atlantic anyway. They arrived in Hartlepool where they were eventually dismantled. A decade on, feelings still run high in the area. Should the ships have been sent back? Should American toxic waste end up in a Hartlepool landfill site? Or was it better for the ships to be broken up here than in a developing country with little environmental regulation? Jolyon Jenkins reports.

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