Ship breaking or scuttling? A review of environmental, economic and forensic issues for decision support

Abstract

In a globalized world, the world trade fleet plays a pivotal role in limiting transport costs. But, the management of obsolete ships is an acute problem, with most Ship Recycling Facilities (SRF) situated in developing countries. They are renowned for their controversial work and safety conditions and their environmental impact. Paradoxically, dismantlement is paid for by the shipowners in accordance with international conventions therefore it is more profitable for them to sell off ships destined for scrapping. Scuttling, the alternative to scrapping, is assessed in the present review to compare the cost/benefit ratios of the two approaches. Although scrapping provides employment and raw materials - but with environmental, health and safety costs - scuttling provides fisheries and diving tourism opportunities but needs appropriate management to avoid organic and metal pollution, introduction of invasive species and exacerbation of coastal erosion. It is also limited by appropriate bottom depth, ship type and number. The present review inventories the environmental, health, safety, economic, and forensic aspects of each alternative.

Uncovering Discursive Framings of the Bangladesh Shipbreaking Industry

“…In this study, understanding how each type of industry contributes to the contamination of coastal waters necessarily shifts the concentration from an industry-specific scale (e.g., shipbreaking industry) to a wider geographical scale, which forces stakeholders to include holistic system variable such as institution, culture and ideology. Note that the decision regarding an appropriate standard of worker safety is also inherently a national issue (Devault et al 2017), but one that has been inappropriately applied to the industry scale (resulting in inconsistencies across industries). For example, a policy focus on the metal cutting stages of production will make the largest impact reduction, while a singular focus on solid and liquid wastes in the shipbreaking yards, as represented in NGO discourse, is not likely to bring about the large reduction in environmental contamination ).…”

“…This is a representation of Bangladesh shipbreaking that only objectivizes the phenomenon with no references to the human interventions that construct this environmental and worker representation. "Who is playing what games" remains relatively unexplored regarding shipbreaking (Cairns 2007;Crang 2010;Demaria 2010;Devault et al 2017). Demaria (2010) employs discourse analysis to discover multiple interpretations of the acceptance of Le clemenceu in India from NGOs, national government officials and international authorities, and concludes that the phenomenon is an "ecological distribution conflict."…”

“…Crang (2010) articulates how photography of shipbreaking activities constructs a sympathetic reality, contrasting bodies of workers with giant ships and ship parts together, arguing that whether workers were victimized or not becomes less concerning than the photographer's intention to frame shipbreaking as a horrific reality (Gregson 2011). Devault et al (2017) argue that the representation of shipbreaking issues in peripheral countries reflects as though the breaking activities are occurring in yards of developed countries.…”

European policies on ship recycling: A stakeholder survey

“…Most countries in the Indian subcontinent, where the "beaching" method is used, lack the safe working and environmental protection arrangements necessary to manage the hazardous materials present in ships. The shipbreaking yards of these developing countries dismantle 600-800 large vessels each year, with cheap and plentiful labour, lax environmental laws, and a high demand for steel [4,[6][7][8][9]. The problem has been considered one of the key questions for global governance on shipbreaking, and the industrialised countries cannot avoid "the polluter pays" principle when dismantling their ships [4,6,10,11,13,14,[16][17][18][19].…”

Strategic guidance based on the concept of cleaner production to improve the ship recycling industry

“…This is mainly due to high operational costs of such ''green'' recycling yards (Devault et al 2016), as they are generally known in the industry (Sarraf 2010). On the contrary, recycling yards with no or little control over health, safety and environmental (HSE) impacts of recycling operations can offer a higher price to ship owners for buying EOL ships.…”