ITF Calls for Panama Canal to Address Fatigue Following Tug Captain’s Death

Captain of a tug died at the Panama Canal while working extended shifts (file photo)

Published Oct 2, 2026 6:49 PM by The Maritime Executive

The issue of fatigue among tug operators at the Panama Canal is again attracting attention after the captain of a tugboat is said to have died due to a grueling work schedule. 

The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is calling on the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) to take action after a 59-year-old captain died aboard the tug Cerro Santiago. The captain died on September 30 while assisting a northbound Neopanamax vessel. He was said to have been working an extended midnight watch on his sixth consecutive day of duty.

While initial reports indicate the captain of the 2013-built tug died due to a possible stroke, ITF wants the cause of death to be established through a thorough, independent, and transparent investigation.

The  ITF is making reference to the fact that fatigue among tug workers has, over the years, been a major issue of concern. For that reason, the investigation into the captain’s death, it says, must include reviewing the possibility of fatigue and must include mechanisms to enforce workers’ protections in terms of rest, consecutive duties, working hours, and staffing.

“Unions in the canal have been warning about safety risks associated with fatigue for years, and those warnings must now be heard,” said Stephen Cotton, ITF General Secretary. He added that the authority must address the issue of fatigue by putting limits on consecutive duties, allowing workers to have proper rest, and hiring more people to have safe staffing levels.

While the authority has remained quiet on the captain’s death, the issue of fatigue among tug operators continues to be a concern for the critical waterway that is the maritime trade route handling about 40 percent of U.S. container traffic and approximately five percent of world trade.

Over the years, there have been numerous incidents at the canal that have been directly attributed to fatigue. As an example, in 2017, the tug Cerro Santiago collided with the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Tampa. An investigation into the collision determined it was caused by failure of the master of the tug to maintain a vigilant watch due to fatigue.

A past study commissioned by Panama’s captains’ union, the Unión de Capitanes y Oficiales de Cubierta (UCOC), asserted that working long hours continues to be a safety hazard for the canal and crew.

“Workers and unions have long warned that excessive hours and inadequate rest put lives and safe operations at risk in the Panama Canal. The authorities must now act without delay,” said Jacques Kerkhof, Chair of the ITF Inland Navigation Section

In June this year, ACP celebrated a decade since the canal’s historic expansion, stating that the expansion has had significant impacts, including increasing the Canal’s capacity, boosting revenues, and consolidating the role of the waterway as an essential platform for global trade.

The authority said that during the first eight months of the 2026 fiscal year, running from October 2025 through May 2026, 8,593 transits were recorded, of which 27.7 percent correspond to Neopanamax vessels, representing 2,385 transits. The expanded canal now accounts for more than 50 percent of the total revenues generated by the interoceanic waterway.

 

From ocean waste to fabric: inside Spain’s sustainable fashion revolution

By Monica Pinna

Published on 02/10/2026 - EURONEWS

Every year, more than 12 million tonnes of plastic ends up in our oceans. Spanish fashion company Ecoalf transforms marine waste and discarded materials into fabrics and clothing through a circular supply chain. But can sustainable fashion transform an industry built on overproduction?

There are almost 5,000 fishermen and one not-for-profit foundation behind Spanish sustainable fashion brand Ecoalf. Every day, the fishermen recover waste caught in their nets, while the Ecoalf Foundation has developed a system to give that waste a second life, turning it into raw material, ultimately, fabric.

"Plastic alone now accounts for around 80% of everything we bring up. This is our daily reality,” says fisherman Tony Beltrán, while showing the waste that got caught in his nets off the coast of Gandía, south of Valencia. **“**Even before recycling became popular, we were already collecting it, the only difference was that we didn't separate it."

Fisherman Tony Beltrán showing some of the waste caught in the nets off the coast of Gandía, south of Valencia. September 2026. © Monica Pinna, Euronews

Since 2015, the Upcycling the Oceans project, launched alongside the creation of the Ecoalf Foundation, has recovered more than 2,000 tonnes of marine waste, the equivalent of around 100 truckloads of rubbish. Today, the initiative involves around 80 ports and has expanded to France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and Thailand. Yet, it’s still a drop in the ocean: the Foundation points out that every minute, the equivalent of a truckload of plastic ends up in the world's oceans.

“Our goal has always been to bring together 10,000 fishermen across the Mediterranean so that, together, we can help clean up the Mediterranean Sea,” explains Andrea Ruzo, director of the Ecoalf Foundation.

Of all the materials recovered from the sea, most of them, like glass and metals, follow conventional recycling routes. But around 5% of this waste are plastic bottles, which are transformed into what Ecoalf calls Ocean Yarn.

“The first step, once the waste has been collected, is to shred it and turn it into flakes and then pellets, that’s the stage before spinning,” explains Ángela Pérez, Ecoalf’s expert in textile innovation and sustainability.

Ocean Yarn, the fiber produced from plastic bottles recovered from the sea. © Monica Pinna

The beating heart of this supply chain is Ecoalf’s headquarters in Madrid, where ocean yarn and other recycled materials are turned into fabrics.

Since its creation in 2009, the company continues to source raw materials from a range of waste well beyond plastic bottles. Some fibres come from discarded fishing nets, others from tyres or recycled natural textiles, such as cotton and wool. The goal, the company says, is to reduce the environmental impact of both production and the finished garment, while maintaining its look and quality.

Julie Sohn, Ecoalf’s Creative Director at Madrid’s headquarters. © Monica Pinna

Circularity influences the decisions a fashion designer makes throughout the design process says Julie Sohn, Ecoalf’s creative director.

“It changes everything from the very beginning. Everything is designed so that the garment can be completely disassembled, without any additional processing, and re-enter the circular economy,” she says.

Among the pioneers of sustainable fashion, Ecoalf was founded with a clear ambition: to prove that a business can succeed while helping transform one of the world’s most polluting industries. 17 years later, the company has grown into a global brand, with annual revenues of around €65 million, 300 employees and dozens of stores worldwide.

Ecoalf’s slogan, “There is no Planet B,” is featured throughout its collections. © Monica Pinna

“The problem we’ve been facing in recent years is mass overconsumption and overproduction. Brands need to move beyond sustainable capsules or focusing on a single material. We need to learn to design with eco-design principles from the very beginning,” explains Carolina Álvarez-Ossorio, Ecoalf’s chief marketing officer.

But could sustainable fashion eventually replace fast fashion? There is still a long way to go according to Álvarez-Ossorio, who is also convinced designers have a role to play in finding new ways to work with purpose and ultimately help protect our planet.

Ecoalf anti Black Friday campaign. © Ecoalf

Ecoalf is a striking example of the circular economy, but it also raises a bigger question: can recycling the waste we already produce ever compensate for new waste we continue to create?

POSTMODERN FEUDALISM

Tata family feud reignites as battle for India’s corporate empire intensifies

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By Aditya Pareek - IntelliNews September 23, 2026

India’s largest and oldest conglomerate, Tata Group, is engaged in a dispute with its own holding company and promoter Tata Sons.

Tata Sons is itself in a tussle with its largest shareholder an entity called Tata Trusts over three separate but related issues, the reappointment of the Chairman of Tata Sons, the extent of the powers of Tata Trusts’s nominated directors on the board of Tata Sons and Tata Sons’ prospects of becoming a publicly listed company on Indian stock exchanges.

At its core the ongoing dispute is a tussle over the now decade-long and messy decoupling between the Tata family and the Mistry family which are both stakeholders under the broader Tata conglomerate umbrella.

While it has been brewing for a while, the dispute came to a boil with India’s central bank the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on September 11 2026 rejecting Tata Sons' plea to give up its registration as a Core Investment Company (CIC).

Tata Sons operates as an upper layer Non Banking Financial Company (NBFC) and is thus regulated by the RBI, which has directed it to be listed as a publicly traded entity which will then bring it under the separate regulatory framework of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as well.

Tata Sons’ board led by the incumbent Chairman N. Chandrasekaran has been planning to comply with the RBI’s public listing regulatory requirement. However, that will require the consent of all shareholders of the company.

Tata Sons' largest single shareholder the Shapoorji Pallonji Group has also been pushing for the public listing as it has been trying to decouple from the Tata umbrella and realise monetisable value for its 18.37% stake.

The Shapoorji Pallonji Group and the Mistry family at its head used to be staunch allies and partners of the Tatas stretching back to the 1930s in what was then British India. However, that camaraderie purportedly came crashing down in 2021 when former Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry was removed over his handling of unprofitable but prestigious projects linked to the then Tata family patriarch Sir Ratan Tata.

Ratan Tata and his half brother Noel Tata likely saw some of those projects as key to his and the Tata family’s legacy - including producing what was at the time the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano and Tata Steel Europe. The Mystry family also has familial bonds with the Tatas, as Aloo Mistry the elder sister of Cyrus Mistry is married to Noel Tata.

Between 2016-2021 the first leg of the dispute ultimately ended in a legal battle which reached the Supreme Court of India which saw the Tatas ultimately able to wrestle back the chairmanship of Tata Sons with Sir Ratan Tata temporarily resuming the role he had vacated for Cyrus Mistry in 2012.

Cyrus Mistry was thus removed in 2016, and the board continued to serve under Sir Ratan Tata until the incumbent N. Chandrasekaran was finally appointed as a replacement in 2017.

Both Sir Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mistry have since passed away but the dispute still continues in the board rooms of those concerned. 

Purely on numbers, Tata Trusts which is a group of non-profit philanthropic entities based in Mumbai owns around 66% of Tata Sons.

Around 13% of Tata Sons is also owned by various Tata Group companies in which Tata Trusts doesn’t directly have any ownership and these companies have their own separate governing boards, promoters, and other structures as applicable. Setting aside the roughly 18.37% stake owned by the Mistry family and their Shapoorji Pallonji Group, this still leaves a 2.63% share which is believed to be owned by others, mainly Tata family members as individuals and their own separate structures.

However, while Tata Sons does hold varying sized stakes in almost all Tata Group companies, its largest shareholder Tata Trusts doesn’t directly dictate policy in their day-to-day affairs, which illustrates the typical level of corporate obfuscation in the control dynamics of the group. One lever of control that Tata Trusts does maintain over Tata Sons though is its right to nominate one third of its directors according to the Articles of Association (AoA) of Tata Sons.

As of September 2026 this has translated into Noel Tata and Venu Srinivasan the Chairman and Vice Chairman of Tata Trusts being two of the six members on the board of Tata Sons. Furthermore, the AoA of Tata Sons grants the two Tata Trusts nominated directors “special voting provisions” as recognised by the Supreme Court of India in the 2021 case.

This means that no majority vote can be passed by a simple majority motion by the Tata Sons board if the two directors don’t also vote in favour of it, thus giving them what is essentially a veto over the board’s decision making.

According to a Hindustan Times report, in a September 17 2026 board meeting the incumbent Chairman of Tata Sons N. Chandrasekaran’s term was renewed for another five years. This ran contrary to an announcement Chandrasekaran himself had announced in August 2026, in that he would not seek a renewal after his term ends on February 20, 2027.

Reportedly Noel Tata, one of the two nominated directors with the veto voted against Chandrasekaran’s renewal. Noel’s fellow veto holding nominated director Venu Srinivasan and the other board members of Tata Sons voting, instead backed the motion with Chandrasekaran recusing himself entirely.

Noel Tata is likely trying to preserve as much of the original legacy of his clan as possible, and according to a report in the local Economic Times is also ready to explore alternatives for Tata Sons, including splitting it, instead of listing it on public stock exchanges as the rest of the board and the Mistry family want.

As it stands, while the general image of the Tata family is one of respected nationalist industrialists in India, it is not without a degree of controversy especially dating back to the time of the British Raj. 

According to the book Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West by Peter Heather and John Rapely, published by Yale University Press, after the British had secured control of many Chinese ports in the First Opium war in 1842, Nusserwanji Tata “had grand ambitions of shipping opium from the Indian region of Malwa into Chinese markets.”

In a later report by India Today, this ambition translated into Tata family members running businesses trading British Indian cotton and opium in exchange for Chinese tea, silks and porcelain, with the opium in question then being smuggled into China where the narcotic was officially banned by the ruling Qing Dynasty.

In post independence India too the Tata conglomerate thrived and even had minor frictions with the elected government of the day. The most iconic example of this was at the time of the nationalisation of the Tata Group’s airline into Air India by then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1953, even if the airline ultimately returned to the Tata Group in 2021 as the Government of India auctioned it off.

How the dispute ultimately plays out, and if the Tata family can preserve its carefully cultivated image of responsible Indian industrialists, will no doubt determine how the family and its legacy are viewed by the next generation.

KRICT strengthens biodegradable plastics with waste hemp hurds

Moisture conditioning and surface treatment turn hemp hurd waste into a reinforcing material, boosting biodegradable film strength by 26%

National Research Council of Science & Technology

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▲ KRICT research team. From left: Senior Researcher June-Ho Choi, Postdoctoral Researcher Hae-Min Jo, Postdoctoral Researcher Jonghwa Kim, and Principal Researcher Hoyong Kim.

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Credit: Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology(KRICT)

Korean researchers have developed to strengthen biodegradable plastics using hemp hurd, an agricultural by-product. The approach is expected to be applicable to other large-volume agricultural residues, including soybean stalks and rice straw.

A research team led by Dr. Hoyong Kim of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), headed by President Suk-Min Shin, extracted cellulose from discarded stalks of industrial hemp, which is used to produce traditional hemp textiles. The team then applied a drying process that preserves the microfibrillar structure of the cellulose, enabling it to serve as a reinforcing biofiller for biodegradable plastics.

Biodegradable films made from thermoplastic starch (TPS) and poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) have attracted attention for use in eco-friendly packaging and agricultural mulch films because they can biodegrade in soil. However, these films tend to tear easily and have limited resistance to moisture. Cellulose obtained from cotton or wood pulp can be processed into microfibrils and used as a reinforcing material, but the additional microfibrillation and processing steps can make such materials costly.

Industrial hemp is currently cultivated in designated Regulation-Free Special Zones, including Andong, Gyeongsangbuk-do. While the outer part of the stalk is used to obtain fibers, the remaining woody core, known as hemp hurd, accounts for roughly 70% of the stalk by weight and has had relatively limited applications. Using discarded hemp hurd as a feedstock for microfibrillated cellulose instead of commercial pulp could reduce both agricultural waste and raw-material costs.

A major challenge, however, is that cellulose microfibrils tend to aggregate tightly when dried using conventional methods. This phenomenon, known as hornification, causes the fine fibrillar structure to collapse as the fibers form strong hydrogen bonds with one another. For a biodegradable film to become stronger, the reinforcing fibers must be uniformly dispersed throughout the polymer matrix so that mechanical stress can be distributed effectively. When the fibers form large aggregates, however, they cannot effectively bear or transfer stress, making the film prone to tearing.

Freeze-drying and spray-drying can help suppress such aggregation, but their high energy consumption and equipment costs make them less suitable for large-scale production. Developing a simple and economical drying process that preserves the fine fibrillar structure while minimizing aggregation has therefore remained a longstanding challenge.

The KRICT team addressed this issue through a two-step physicochemical strategy that retains conventional oven drying while controlling the moisture content of the hemp-derived cellulose and treating its surface with a low-cost chemical agent, alkyl ketene dimer (AKD).

Plant fibers have an intrinsic critical moisture level known as the fiber saturation point (FSP). At this point, free water in the pores of the fibers has been removed, while bound water remains within the cell walls. For plant fibers, the FSP generally corresponds to a moisture content of approximately 30%. Once the moisture content falls below this threshold, bound water begins to desorb, bringing adjacent cellulose microfibrils closer together and promoting strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding and irreversible aggregation.

The research team prepared microfibrillated cellulose from hemp hurd and precisely identified its FSP. The fibers were then milled while maintaining an appropriate moisture level above this critical threshold, allowing processing to take place before severe hornification occurred.

The team further treated the cellulose surface with AKD. The hydrophobic alkyl chains introduced by AKD create steric hindrance between adjacent microfibrils, further suppressing interfibrillar hydrogen bonding during drying. By combining moisture control with AKD surface modification, the researchers were able to preserve the fine fibrillar structure using conventional oven drying, without relying on expensive freeze-drying.

The resulting hemp-hurd-derived cellulose was incorporated at 10 wt% into a TPS/PBAT biodegradable film, and the film's tensile strength was evaluated. Cellulose microfibrils prepared using the conventional drying method improved tensile strength by only 1.5%, whereas the biofiller produced using the newly developed process increased tensile strength by 26.2%. The amounts of water vapor and oxygen passing through the film were also reduced by approximately 17% and 9%, respectively, demonstrating improved moisture and oxygen barrier performance.

The technology could potentially be extended to various other cellulose-rich agricultural residues, including soybean stalks and rice straw, and the research team plans to conduct further studies to broaden its applications.

The research was published in July 2026 in the Chemical Engineering Journal (Impact Factor: 12.5), an international journal in the field of chemical engineering.

 

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KRICT is a non-profit research institute funded by the Korean government. Since its foundation in 1976, KRICT has played a leading role in advancing national chemical technologies in the fields of chemistry, material science, environmental science, and chemical engineering. Now, KRICT is moving forward to become a globally leading research institute tackling the most challenging issues in the field of Chemistry and Engineering and will continue to fulfill its role in developing chemical technologies that benefit the entire world and contribute to maintaining a healthy planet. More detailed information on KRICT can be found at https://www.krict.re.kr/eng/

The research was supported by KRICT's institutional research program, the Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development of the Rural Development Administration (RS-2025-02263976).

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Journal

Chemical Engineering Journal

DOI

10.1016/j.cej.2026.179503

Article Title

Fiber-saturation-point-guided microfibrillation of hemp hurd enabling concurrent performance enhancement of thermoplastic starch/polybutylene adipate terephthalate

▲ A dual-control strategy combining FSP-guided moisture conditioning and AKD surface modification. Optimizing the moisture content suppresses hornificationand preserves the specific surface area of cellulose fibers, while AKD surface modification enhances hydrophobicity and compatibility with the polymer matrix. The resulting bio-filled TPS/PBAT film achieves a 26.2% increase in tensile strength while maintaining 99.4% biodegradability relative to cellulose.

Credit

Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology(KRICT)

Caption

▲ Schematic illustration of the preparation of MFH and AMFH from hemp hurd fibers through microfibrillation, moisture pre-conditioning, pre-milling, oven drying, fine milling, and sieving.

Credit

Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology(KRICT)

 

The high cost of climate change on worker productivity

Study quantifies the price of heat stress for workers around the world

University of California - Davis

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A cotton trailer outfitted with benches and a sunshade offers farmworkers a reprieve from the sun as they take a break from picking cantaloupe melons in Firebaugh, Calif.

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Credit: Joe Proudman/UC Davis

As the climate warms, people are more exposed to heat stress, which depresses their productivity and the global economy. A study from the University of California, Davis, quantifies the cost of heat stress on global labor. 

The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, estimates that each ton of carbon dioxide emitted in 2025 cost $41 in lost productivity. 

Highly populated areas meeting critical thresholds for heat and humidity were particularly affected, the study found. This includes India, Nigeria, China and Pakistan, as well as countries in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.  

“Our study contributes to the body of evidence about what the real costs of climate change are,” said lead author Frances Moore, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “Based on these new numbers, labor is the second-largest contributor to the total social cost of carbon, just behind heat-related deaths.”

The social cost of carbon and its value

The social cost of carbon, or SC-CO2, is the quantifiable cost of one additional ton of CO2 emissions. The measurement is highly relevant for policy decisions related to cost-benefit analyses, infrastructure planning, utility regulation and carbon taxes. 

The study lends strong support for a social cost of carbon value of $200, a value similar to that estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2023. Current federal guidance does not recognize the metric and discourages monetizing the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in regulatory analysis. However, the study states “we can confidently rule out a SC-CO2 of zero or below.”

“We’re getting better and better at evaluating climate damages,” Moore said. “We’re getting more confident in the social cost of carbon, and it is a metric that should be used. This number is ready to help inform good climate policy analysis.”

Heat stress varies by region, job, A/C access 

To reach their findings, the authors combined projections from a heat stress metric called the “wet-bulb globe temperature” (WBGT) with job and region-specific estimates of work intensity and outdoor exposure across different economic sectors. WBGT captures the physical risks of hot temperatures by accounting for weather variables that influence the body’s ability to dissipate heat, including humidity and wind speed. 

Exposure to heat stress by both indoor and outdoor workers varied across the globe depending on the local environment, strenuousness of the work and access to shade and air conditioning.

Agricultural and construction laborers are far more exposed to heat than office or service workers because they often perform strenuous, outdoor work. However, indoor workers with minimal or no air conditioning also are at risk. For example, a dataset of residential air conditioning adoption in 33 countries showed A/C penetration rates ranging from 0% in South Sudan to 90% in Japan.

In addition to air conditioning, more shade, water, breaks and shifting work to cooler hours of the day when possible can protect workers from heat stress.

“Heat is very dangerous,” Moore said. “Employers and policymakers need to be treating it as the real health hazard that it is and thinking seriously about ways to mitigate those damages because we’re going to keep seeing more frequent, more intense heat extremes.”

The study’s additional authors include Iman Haqiqi, Uris Baldos, Matthew Huber and Thomas Hertel of Purdue University; Qinqin Kong and Lisa Rennels of Stanford University and Hamsa Ganapathi of UC Davis.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies Bass Fellowship, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship, National Institutes of Health, NASA, Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship and Precourt Institute for Energy.

A farmworker takes a drink of water while taking a break from harvesting cantaloupes in Firebaugh, Calif.

Credit

Joe Proudman/UC Davis

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Journal

Nature Climate Change

DOI

10.1038/s41558-026-02749-z

Article Title

New labour and agricultural damages improve climate cost estimates'

Article Publication Date

16-Sep-2026