The majority of European ships are scrapped years later in Southeast Asian coastal junkyards under questionable working conditions and environmental controls...The European Union now wants to see European shipping companies take on more responsibility for disposal of the vessels...Thanks to an initiative by members of the European Parliament, European shippers may soon have to pay three cents per ton freighted into a special fund once they dock at EU harbors...It's a kind of disposal tax, which would be intended to improve working conditions and environmental standards... "The fact that a ship landing in a junkyard after however many years may originally have had a German owner does not mean that this first owner should be held responsible for some unapproved scrap disposal," said Ralf Nagel, head of the Association of German Shippers (VDR)...[Nigel says] "The European Parliament has good intentions, but it would really only create at best a few green recycling islands - but no concrete help for the people there."