Topic – Ship recycling – Human & environment impacts.

Background of the study

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF SHIP DISMANTLING
The purpose of this thesis was to study how ocean-going vessels are permanently withdrawn
from operation by recycling. The intention was to gain an understanding on how the ship
recycling has developed into the current state and what the near future holds for the industry.
This thesis concentrates particularly on the impacts that ship recycling has on the environment
– nature and the human. The purpose was to find ways to reduce the human & environmental
impacts. The recycling of a ship includes removing the equipment and breaking the hull. Ship
recycling meets many of the characteristics of recycling but on the other hand because of its
adverse environmental effects it is rarely referred to as recycling. A very high recycling rate can
be reached especially with tanker ships because the share of the ship’s steel hull from the total
mass of the vessel is significant. There have been attempts to regulate the environmental
impacts of ship dismantling since the late 1980s. The results have however been poor because
the regulations have been easy to avoid. The creation of new stricter and internationally
binding laws is very slow. Entering into force is even slower. 95 percent of all commercial
vessels are dismantled in South Asia where the labor costs are low and the occupational safety
and environmental requirements are minimal. The largest country in the field of ship recycling
is India. The most common method of ship recycling is to beach a vessel during a high tide.
During the low tide ships are cut into pieces manually with gas torches. The process takes place
on unprotected beaches. Hazardous substances then spread freely into the ocean and the soil.
The decision of recycling a ship is made when the maintenance expenses exceed the profits
from operating the ship. The utilization rate of a ship is directly comparable to the global
economy. During a global economic boom the operators try to avoid breaking their ships
because of high freight rates. The ship recycling industry works inversely compared with the
global economy. During the recent recession a record number of ships have been scrapped.

1.1 Background
This study is part of ECO-EFFI co-operation project which purpose is to develop methods and tools
to estimate ships’ eco-efficiency. The ECO-EFFI project is part of larger entity called SEEE – Ship’s
Energy Efficiency and Environment. SEEE is a FIMECC (Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence
Cluster) project. The aim of this study is to deliver a report that presents the state, challenges and
possibilities of ship dismantling today and give ideas on how to develop the industry in the future.
Ships are dismantled to recycle the steel they are built of. It is a relatively young industry as there
has been need to break ships made of steel only for around 50 years now. Until recent years the
industry has been taking place mainly in the developing countries in Asia at the expense of nature
and laborer’s but as the awareness about the industry has risen there is increasing pressure to
invest in the sustainability of ship dismantling.

Abstract
In this paper, overall ship recycling process in Bangladesh has been investigated and a
comparison has been shown between Bangladesh and Rest of World on ship recycling activities.
Furthermore the economic and environmental impact due to ship recycling in Bangladesh has
also been demonstrated. However, the object of this paper is to discuss the current situation of
ship recycling in Bangladesh and give some proposals to overcome the detrimental effects on
environment and human life due to ship recycling.
1. Introduction
Seas going vessels or ships have a normal lifespan of about 30/40 years after which any repair
or renovation becomes uneconomical. These ships are then retired and sold for scrap to
commercial ship breakers. Until well into the 20th century, ship breaking used to be carried out
in industrialized ports including those in USA and UK. Thereafter, the major centers of the ship
breaking and recycling industry (SBRI) first moved from Europe and North America to East Asia
and, since the 1980s, to South Asia. Since ship breaking involves highly labor intensive work, the
SBRI has gravitated to countries with availability of low wage labor. In addition, weak
occupational health and environment regulations, and little or no enforcement may also have
been a contributory factor for the emergence of a large SBRI sector in South Asia. Currently, the
global center of the ship breaking and recycling industry is located in South Asia, specifically
Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. These three countries account for 7080 percent of the
international market for ship breaking of ocean-going vessels, with China and Turkey
accounting for most of the rest. Only about 5 percent of the global volume of such vessels is
scrapped outside these five countries. The ship breaking and recycling industry plays a
significant economic role in Bangladesh, supplying a substantial quantity of reroll able scrap
steel for the iron and steel industries. SBRI provides more than half of Bangladesh’s steel
supply, for example, making it a strategic industry in that country. The industry also creates
hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs for some of the poorest and most
marginalized segments of the population in those countries. Although ship recycling is
considered to be the most sustainable and efficient way of disposing a ship at the end of her
life, Shipbreaking/dismantling is one of the most hazardous occupation (ILO, 2004) as well.
Because of the complexity of the ship structure, inherent materials attached to the vessel
during building, the work process and the locations do involve numerous environmental, health
and safety issues. Therefore Workers are often exposed to associated work hazards which has
significant detrimental effects on human health as well as on the environment if not handled
properly. Historically working conditions have been very difficult in these major shipbreaking
countries because of limited or no use of personal protective equipment, lack in use of
mechanized equipment, remote location of the industries to obtain adequate shore support as
well as proper enforcement. Social conditions associated with low education level, availability
of information, lack of training and education has further aggravated the situation. The working
conditions and negative impacts on the environment have been a growing concern over the
past by the industry, social groups, NGO’s and local and international media. A comprehensive
plan of actions needs to be in place to improvise the current situations in those countries where
proper training and education has been spotted to be of utmost priority.