Making ship-breaking a safe and green industry

Experts at a recent workshop in the city said the governments, owners and workers of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan should join in coordinated efforts to make ship-breaking a safe and green industry which is otherwise considered a hazardous one.

In fact, the entire South Asia region (India, Bangladesh and Pakistan) accounted for almost 70 per cent of world ship-breaking in gross tonnage. According to a survey by a multilateral body in 2010, 30,000 workers were engaged in ship-breaking industry in Bangladesh. Ship-breaking was earlier considered an informal industry, being accident prone, lacking in basic amenities and involving handling of hazardous wastes.

The South Asian region should create pressure on the developed countries, which constructed ships, to take responsibility of permanent disposal of hazardous shipping wastes. According to a survey, 17 people died in 2009, five in 2010, 13 in 2011 and 15 in 2012 at ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh government has recently declared ship-breaking as an industry. The sector has also been placed under the ministry of industries. The new government initiative is, no doubt, laudable. But the point here is that the authorities concerned need to be extra cautious about the protection of nature and environment of the surrounding areas where the industry is located.

The authorities said that all rules, regulations and conventions would have to be properly maintained while conducting ship-breaking activities under their new classification as an industrial operation. They directed the authorities concerned to bring the ship-breaking yards under a disciplined and well-organised system.

It is otherwise expected that the decision of the government would open up new opportunities for a considerable number of people to get employment in the industry. Placing of ship-breaking industry under the ministry of industries is also aimed at ensuring discipline in all its phases of activities while the surrounding inhabitants, local environment and the workers and employees are not to encounter or face any adverse effects.

The ship-breaking and recycling operations are furthermore expected to meet the domestic demand for iron goods, help flourish ship-building industry, boost employment generation and facilitate infrastructure development through setting up of re-rolling mills, small, cottage and other allied industries. The ship-breaking industry took off in Bangladesh a decade back and has now emerged as the second largest employment-generating sector, next to the readymade garment (RMG) sector only.

In the absence of a clear-cut policy, more hazardous ship-breaking yards have, meanwhile, witnessed a mushroom growth in Chittagong, increasing the threat to life and environment of the surrounding areas. By keeping the court order in legal tangles, a section of unscrupulous ship-breaking yard-owners have been continuing their activities. Although more yards are still being set up, the government is yet to take any move to ensure workers' safety or protect the environment. It rather let local influential people to build new ship-breaking yards, destroying the "para forest". According to the Department of Environment (DoE), the number of the yards has now shot up to 70 from only 36 in 2008.

 At present, ship-breaking yards occupied 12.78 kilometres of area at Sitakunda in Chittagong while about two nautical miles of sea-water became contaminated by the industry. For that region, ship-breaking industry should be made a safer and greener industry.

Almost all the country's ship-breaking yards are otherwise found to be flouting the law, endangering the labourers' lives and degrading the environment. Death of ill-fated workers due to inhalation of poisonous gas, fire and falling metal scrap is common in such yards. The Labour Law of 2006 is being blatantly violated in the yards. The labourers work without any safety gear and handle toxic substances with their bare hands. They have neither any job contract nor any health insurance.

There is no denying that ship-breaking is quite a profitable venture. The yard-owners should, therefore, spend some additional money for workers' safety, training and welfare under their own institutional care. And there is no need to scrap as much as one hundred poisonous ships per year. By an elimination process only, the least hazardous ships should be allowed to enter the country. If such a process is taken up, the number of casual or irregular workers will automatically come down. If yards are fewer, the operation will go on throughout the year and regular workers will not face any temporary joblessness. Any way, a tough but an environment-friendly policy should be framed to give the ship-breaking industry a better look.

On their part, the local ship-breakers think the campaign against them as an international conspiracy to harm the country's prospective ship-breaking industry. As ship-breaking is emerging as an economically viable sector here, some European countries are allegedly conspiring to destroy it, according to them. If the country prospers in ship-breaking, the Europeans will not be required to send scraps here any more.

Criticising the ship-breakers for their dubious role in sea and environment pollution, environmentalists have urged the government not to succumb to any pressure from the breakers. They said no ship-breaking yard in Chittagong has any environmental clearance to operate and most of such operational yards discharge different toxic elements into the sea and cause damage to the marine life.

The safety of the workers and a pollution-free environment are of utmost importance in the context of Bangladesh. Yet it is also important to keep the country's ship-breaking industry alive. If this industry closes for any unsustainable reason, it could cause the collapse of other industries that depend on it. The campaign to protect the environment and lives of workers is certainty commendable. But it will also be irrational to ignore the economic value of an industry, only on consideration of some factors that are beyond its control.

 szkhan@dhaka.net