DC Velocity - November 2011

inbound

Better recycling through labeling
Help for victims of
maritime piracy

THE PAKISTANI VESSEL PICTURED ABOVE WAS COMMANDEERED LAST YEAR B Y SOMALI PIRATES, WHO HELD CRE W MEMBERS CAPTIVE FOR SIX MONTHS.

PHOTO COURTES Y OF U.S. NAVY/DESHONIA WESLEY.

Despite the flurry of news coverage during the 2009 Maersk Alabama incident, many international traders still fail to grasp the dangers that confront vessel crews in many parts of the world. Crew members captured by Somali and other pirates have suffered physical and mental abuse, including torture, deprivation, beatings, death threats, and death itself, according to the Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Programme (MPHRP), a new organization whose mission is to assist crew members who have been or may be subject to pirate attacks.

More than 4,000 mariners are believed to have come under attack in recent years. As of late September, there were a reported 15 vessels with 277 crew members held hostage on board and another 19 being held prisoner on land.

Those terrifying experiences can affect mariners and their families for years to come. That’s why London-based MPHRP is now developing guidelines and training modules for use by shipping companies, manning agents, and welfare associations to support seafarers and their families before, during, and after a crisis. The group also aims to put together an international network of trained first responders and a network of professional aftercare providers, as well as launch a 24- hour international seafarers’ telephone helpline.

MPHRP is funded by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) Seafarers’ Trust charity and The TK Foundation, and is chaired by Peter Swift, former managing director of the shipping industry group Intertanko. The organization’s members include companies and associations representing the entire shipping industry.

For more information about the dangers ships’ crews face and how the industry plans to help, go to www.mphrp.org. ;

Making your business more eco-friendly could be as easy as revising your products’ labels. According to the sustain-ability-focused non-profit GreenBlue, confusing or incomplete recycling directions on product labels can discourage consumers from recycling. To address the problem, the organization will soon launch the Packaging Recovery Label System, a voluntary label developed by the organization’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition to communicate to consumers how to recycle a package after use.

The goals of the labeling system are to reduce confusion for consumers with clear recycling instructions and to develop a consistent, accurate labeling system for companies that adheres to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) “Green Guides.” Participants in the pilot include ConAgra Foods, Costco Wholesale, Microsoft, REI, and Seventh Generation. Following the pilot phase, the label will be available for any interested companies to use.

GreenBlue also released its Labeling for Package Recovery report, which outlines the problems caused by inconsistent and misleading labels on packages, and dis-cusses how an effective labeling scheme could address shortcomings of the U.S. recycling and recovery system. The report can be downloaded for free at www.green-blue.org/publications. ;

When you think of topics discussed by heads of state, distribution networks may not come to mind. Yet in late September, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with their Uzbek counterparts to discuss expanding the use of the Central Asian country as a supply route for troops in Afghanistan. The talks come at a time when the United States is seeking to reduce its reliance on Pakistan as a supply route.

If the subject sounds familiar, it may be because we covered it last year in our exclusive story on the U.S. military’s Northern Distribution Network, which serves troops and military bases in Afghanistan. According to press reports, the secretary of state referred to the network by name when speaking to reporters after the meetings.