It's been nearly 17 months since the RMS Mulheim ran aground off Lands End spilling its cargo of scrap car plastics into pristine waters. A delayed salvage operation led to much of the 2000 tonnes of car scrap ending up on an array of north cornwall beaches reaching as far as 200 miles away.

 

A Marine Accident Invrestigation Branch report found that the Captain had knocked himself out after catching his trousers getting up from his seat. He was the only one on watch so the rest of the crew were oblivious to what was happening until it hit the rocks and then they were uncertain as to their position as they had not been plotting their progress correctly.

 

Despite all this Mulheim cargo continues to be a presence on the regions beaches - much of it is plastic so will take years to break down in the Environment. SAS also learnt of the presence of PCB's and heavy metals in the cargo placing a further threat on the marin eenvironment from these harmful substances.

 

We have still not seen the Shipping Minister bring forward a prosecution and we understand a decision has not yet been made on whether this will even happen. In fact prosecutions against ship owners for pollution incidents in the UK have been woefully inadequate. In fact only 1 in every 500 maritime pollution incidents were prosecuted in a 5 year period between 1995 and 2002.

 

We want some action from the Government and as of now we will be sending one piece of Mulheim plastic to the Shipping Minister each day until we see a prosecution. Attached to it we will add a SAS supporters message and so email us here to add your message.. Keep them polite but forceful, let them know your disappointment at the failure to prosecute the ships owners and the dangers our oceans still face from hazardous ships carrying toxic cargoes, flying flags of convenience make prosecutions difficult.

 

A few months ago we crashed our own version of the Mulheim into the Shipping Minister's front door - now its time to have your say! 

  

If you haven't got one already get one of our fantastic limited edition 'WRECKED' campaign T-shirts as part of our safer shipping campaign.