Alang Ship Breaking Case Study

The life of a ship or a vessel is generally 25-30 years, beyond which it is declared unfit for further use. At the end of its sailing life, a ship is sold to recover valuable steel which on an average comprises 95% of the total bulk of the ship, a process widely known as ship breaking. Ship recycling in its current form has a total market turnover of approximately $1.5 billion per annum2 and is one of the largest recycling activities globally. Recycling ships in itself is an inherently sustainable activity as 95% of a ship’s material, such as scrap steel or equipment, can be recycled or reused. Generally, 95% of a ship’s body is made of mild steel, 2% stainless steel and 3% of miscellaneous metals such as copper, brass, aluminum etc. The manner in which the recycling is undertaken, determines the impact of the activity on the environment and workers’ health and safety. Ironically, while such an activity has become low in developed countries, it has been rising in developing countries.

Scrapping of ships was a common activity in United States and Europe with the sole objective of recycling old ships to recover metals, until 1970s. With the development of high level of worker, environmental and safety control in developed countries, ship breaking shifted to countries like Brazil, Spain, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan. Later, as the cost of meeting stringent environmental and health safety standards, increasingly made the activity difficult in these countries as well, the activity slowly shifted to Asian countries where occupational health and safety standards were not being enforced rigorously. In the absence of material substance bans, there was high use of toxic and hazardous substances such as lead paints, anti fouling agents laden with mercury, arsenic and tributyl tin, in ship building. Asbestos, a highly carcinogenic material was used to keep ships fire free. The scrapping work being labor intensive involving high risk, ship owners found developing countries attractive having a good market for the recoverable metals and low cost of labor.

Currently, ship breaking is centered on Indian sub-continent contributing to 48% of the entire industry. Most of the work is carried out in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan where the high tides are especially conducive to heaving the ships up onto the beach . China, which until 1993 undertook half of the scrapping in the world dropped out of the market when stricter environmental laws got enforced.

The global trade of ships to be broken is expanding very rapidly. The decision of the member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to phase out single вЂ" hull oil tankers by 2015, will increase the number of commercial vessels requiring recycling in the coming years. Given that most ships must be scrapped after 20-25 years for safety reasons, the supply side for such vessels