We all know the concept of a disposal fee already built into a product at the time of that product’s acquisition, by the end customer. It might become one viable approach to the question who pays for recycling? Therewith avoiding the illegal dumping of yachts at their end of life.
Until that happens on a wide scale though, a yacht’s total cost of ownership up to and including that end of life will be based upon location, availability of services and enabling legal frameworks for sustainable yacht recycling.
Any good funding proposal lives by credible financial figures.
The costs for setting up a sustainable dismantling facility vary a lot. In the densely populated Netherlands for instance, ground prices see huge differences between one region and another. Consequently, it makes no sense to expect costs for such a facility to be universally valid. Same
goes for staff, equipment, approvals and local services. But general lists can be produced which then allow respective realistic price calculations to be made on the respective local / national scale:
- Dismantling site features (hall, machinery, staff, equipment, supply) – here is an example.
- Materials to be extracted – quantities per yacht type
- Components to be extracted – quantity per yacht type
- Working times per procedure step, resulting costs of technicians
- Transportation costs. Road, waterways, on trailers, in containers? If yacht recycling shall be made attractive and feasible for owners, financial support of yacht transport must be offered, too.
All the calculations done, a rather clear idea should emerge about how much could be gained from dismantling one single yacht. And how many yachts per year must become available for dismantling, so that a facility can become profitable. Detracting Dutch public holidays from total working days, for my study project at the time I had calculated about 74 yachts per year, to be dismantled at a location inside NL, at the water. It quickly became apparent that initial funding would be vital. The good news of course is that the dismantling work itself is not super complicated to do. The skills can be trained rather easily. It appears to require some special machinery though, to extract composite materials in a recyclable condition.
So far the initial brainstorming. Much more will be added – details on material and components, their average quantities to extract per yacht and the prices to be paid for each.
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