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Shipbreaking around the world

India

Alang: The place where ships go to die
Thanks to the recession, Gujarat's ship-breaking yards are booming – but the impact on the environment is toxic

It is known as the graveyard of ships, a place where ageing vessels are torn apart by unskilled labourers and the metal then sold on as scrap. In recent years these often deadly and dangerous ship breakers' yards, which stretch a full seven miles along the coastline of the Indian state of Gujarat, have themselves been a little on their uppers. Read more

The yards in Alang is famous in the shipbreaking industry. Located along the bank of the Arabian Ocean and concentrated around a coastal area named Alang of Vabhnagar, in the state of Gujarat, almost 3000 kilometers from Chittagong, Bangaldesh. The Alang shipbreaking yards started scrapping ships in 1983.
Dump Management System
The dump management yard, created by the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB), started it activities 2006. There are several large holes in the yard, which are covered from top to bottom by a thick layer of plastic. The waste materials from the ships are bought by truck and placed into these holes and once full, it is covered up with soil. Another hole is then dug out.
An asbestos segregation center where the toxic materials are separated from other waste is also due to open.

Training and Welfare Center
This training and welfare center is organized by the GMB. It's designed to train workers on risk management, security and safety in the shipbreaking yards. Three kinds of training are delivered in this center: basic training, advanced training and training for the foremen. The basic training is for three days with between 30 to 35 workers. The center has completed 53 basic trainings. After the basic training, advanced training is available. After completing the training, the center issues the workers with a certificate with which the workers can use to access health facilities.

The center use posters, steel pictures, and video clippings to educate the workers. There an indoor and outdoor auditorium in the training center. The outdoor auditorium is for the workers. They watch films or documentaries about safety in the evenings as they work during the day. Land has also been purchased by the GMB to build adequate housing for the workers.
(Source: Greenpeace website).

China

In China shipbreaking looks less dramatic than on Indian or Bangladeshi beaches. Vessels are broken up in docks with more cranes and machinery. But in fact the working conditions are similar in shipbreaking yards all over Asia.

Insufficient protection

In 2000 Greenpeace visited four Chinese shipbreaking yards. Workers were either not completely or insufficiently protected against toxic and hazardous materials. Toxic waste is burnt in open fires. Asbestos was removed without proper protection for workers. The carcinogenic material was sold for re-use to industries producing heating systems.

Heavily polluted

Yards were heavily polluted by oil, heavy metals and other toxic substances. Pollution has spread outside the yards as well. Greenpeace studies proved that sediments of the Pearl and Yangtze river are also polluted by toxic substances from old ships. (Source: Greenpeace website).

Pakistan

historical perspective

The ship-breaking industry has a long and not-quite-illustrious history. Long ago, when shipping-lines were the arteries of world commerce, there were myriad opportunities for the less scrupulous amongst us to profit from the seas. Pirates, of course, are the one such example of downright nastiness. These parasites of the seas have been romanticised and immortalised in human memory by now, with a popular internet meme from last year pitting pirates against ninjas in all manner of inane tasks. Perhaps the reason for the notoriety of pirates is the fact that they are, other than in Somalia, extinct. They, unlike so many of their ilk, were not converted by the forces of capitalism into a legitimate business venture.
Speaking of other immoral devils from the middle-ages and beyond who later got civilised, Ship-wrecking used to be a very profitable form of banditry up until the 19th century. Besides the usual opportunistic looting from naturally wrecked ships, enterprising individuals would often use nefariously placed lighthouses to drive desperate sea-vessels directly on to dangerous rocks, after which they would kill the crew and take apart said vessels to salvage every joint of wood that could possibly turn a profit.
With the advent of the industrial age, ship-builders started using more durable materials to construct the behemoths that roamed the open oceans. Metals were now the predominant ingredient in ship-building, and as every recycling fanatic amongst us knows, metals are a finite resource. With this paradigm shift, the industry of ship-breaking was born, converting the aforementioned immoral devils into upstanding, hard-working citizens of the civilised world. Now instead of having to trick ships into wrecking themselves, all the enterprising individual had to do was to find a job in one of the great ship-breaking yards of Europe’s coastal cities. Sure, the profits fell, but there was job safety and no need to murder, and so the industry flourished.
That was Europe in the 19th century. Slowly, as that part of the world progressed into the realm of labour-laws and environmental protection, the harsh industry of ship-breaking found a new home. With the immense amount of labor it required and the damage it caused to the environment, South Asia was the perfect haven for the still-profitable occupation. The hungry, unemployed millions and the complete lack of potentially hampering legislation made India, Bangladesh and Pakistan the premier ship-breaking countries in the world. The mechanics of ship-breaking have remained more or less constant over the years. First, the ship that is to be dismantled is run aground on a stretch of beach. Then workers swarm over it and take it apart piece by piece, salvaging a vast quantity of iron and steel in the process, along with various other valuable materials. For this operation, a natural harbor is a true blessing, as it allows vessels of any size to approach and be grounded with ease. 

The industry in Pakistan

The Pakistani ship-breaking industry is for this very reason situated mainly in Gadani, Balochistan, about 50 kilometers away from Karachi. A 10 kilometers long beachfront here plays host to as many old and tired ships as need be, as long as said need is below 125 ships. In its hey-day, this yard provided direct employment to around 30,000 people and was the largest ship-breaking operation in the world. From 1969 to 1983, Gadani was in the prime of its life. In the 80’s, it produced a million tonnes of scrap metal each year, thus fueling the Pakistani steel industry like nothing else. 
During this time, the Pakistani government, for once, showed good business sense and did all it could to help the development of the industry. Infrastructure was developed, import duties were lessened, and the National Ship-Breakers’ Association was given a voice. The effect of all this was a minor economic boom for the province of Balochistan, as the Balochistan Development Authority leased the Beachfront in Gadani out to the ship-breakers on a case-by-case basis and extracted revenue according to the tonnage of the ship being broken. This source of revenue for the impoverished province continues well into the present day, even after the operations at Gadani have slowed down significantly. 
This slowing down started in the late 80s, as taxation and import duties grew and competition from yards in Bangladesh and India leeched off business. The deprecation went on till 2001, when the total scrap metal produced at the yard was a mere 160,000 tonnes, down from the millions of the previous decades.
Resurgence did come about at the start of the 2000s though, as taxation on ship-breaking was cut down to 10 per cent from 15 per cent. Growth has been noticeable over the last few years especially, with the 2009-2010 fiscal year being one of the most successful in recent history. A record 107 ships were broken during this year at Gadani, an all time high for the yard.

Environmental and occupational hazards

Despite the economic success the business has brought about in Pakistan, the factors that caused First-World countries to abandon this practice are still very much existent. Economic and occupational hazards are a dime a dozen and they are progressively getting worse. US Department of Labour Occupational Safety and Health Administration worksheet from 2001 divides the dangers associated with ship-breaking into three categories: Hazardous Exposures, Hazardous Work Activities and Hazardous Work Conditions.
Hazardous exposures are one of the main environmental issues associated with the industry. Poisonous substances such as Asbestos and Lead are common on ships from even a few years ago and are given no importance by either our government or the Ship-breakers’ Association. Other more commonplace dangers such as excessive noise levels and fire are not considered dangers at all.
Hazardous work activities include what our friend Murad met with. Welding out huge pieces of metal in almost absolute darkness sounds dangerous, and indeed, it is. Ships are huge, some are larger than sky-scrapers. Working manually on such gigantic structures near the sea means dangers from both height and depth. Pakistani workers have the added disadvantage of not possessing any safety equipment at all. These conditions are hazardous in every way.
Murad makes a re-entry into the story here. A complete lack of labour compensation laws meant that he did not have a legal base to sue his employers, who had already been unusually generous (by Pakistani standards) in taking care of his medical expenses. He was to leave my father’s office disappointed.
Following up with him later I discovered that the eldest of his 4 sons was now in the ship-breaking business, taking up from where his father had been forced to leave off. In a country riddled with unemployment and hunger, Murad was glad to have found a means of subsistence for his son, even though he was well-aware of the possible dangers.

Vital yet fatal

A spate of similar incidents in 2010 forced thousands of ship-breakers from over 40 different companies to go on a 6 day strike last year. With over 17 on-the-job causalities in the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the largest of the labor unions all united to demand reasonable work hours, safer work conditions and modern safety equipment, along with more reasonable wages (Ship-breaking is a minimum wage job; it barely pays Rs6000-7000 per month). Unfortunately, the strike paid few dividends; agreements were made but nothing was implemented, and so conditions remain as bad as ever.
This purpose of this article was to shed light on the business of ship-breaking. It is a business that is important to the economy of Pakistan yet so dangerous that it is almost a crime to employ people for it. The long-term effects of the hazardous exposures haven’t ever been documented, and no one knows what amount of damage they’ve caused to the people of Gadani. It really is like being caught between a rock and a hard place, and for as long as feeds the mouths of the hungry, the remoter dangers shall be overlooked. What is important though is that labor protection and compensation laws need to be strengthened in Pakistan, and this occupation needs to be made as safe as possible, so that tragedies such as Murad’s do not occur as often as they now do. Source: Pakistan Today

Turkey

Burnt cables
Cables from the ships are illegally burnt in the early morning. When burnt, highly dangerous fumes like dioxins and furans are released. Dioxins are the most toxic substances humans have ever released into the environment.
Asbestos
Asbestos containing materials (blue, white and brown) are lying all over the shipbreaking site. Also at the open dumpsite, where villagers from nearby settlements are searching for valuable materials.
Aliaga
This is Aliaga, Turkey around 50 km north of Izmir at the Aegean coast. And although Turkey is an OECD country, the environmental and working conditions are very similar to the shipbreaking countries in Asia. Shipbreaking in Aliaga began in mid 70's and officially in 1984 when the import of ship-for-scrap was allowed according to liberalisation measures of that time.
Sea Beirut
An important shipbreaking example in Turkey is the Sea Beirut. Turkey wants France to take back this ship, under the same Basel Convention. In Turkey the import of toxic ships-for-scrap is not allowed. (Source: Greenpeace website).