Ship Breaking Industry and Its Impacts on Environment

Abstract

Like all live creatures, ships too get born, live and at the end of the day go to their cemeteries. Ships cemetery is either the seabed, mostly after a casualty, or the breaking yard for recycling. Ships live differently as to their trading function; some are large or small in size, some are designed to carry solely dangerous cargo and some others have fighting techniques. For that reason, their treatment for recycling process also varies one another. The average life-span of merchant ships used in international trade is of a couple of decades. The aged ships are withdrawn and go to ship breaking facilities for recycling. With this regard, shipbreaking industry provides a regeneration function and is indispensable not only for the shipping industry but also for the world economy. Shipbreaking is performed in specialised yards - some of which are properly designed and organised, several others are simply being bare grounds. When and where the scrapping operations are carried out under inappropriate conditions thence the industry is considered as damaging for the environment as well as human health. Some toxic wastes that come up in the process of ship breaking together with the improper handling of some materials may ultimately cause marine pollution and justify these claims.