Ship breaking
Ship breaking is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships either as a source of parts, which can be sold for re-use, or for the extraction of raw materials, chiefly scrap. Modern ships have a lifespan of 25 to 30 years before corrosion, metal fatigue and a lack of parts render them uneconomical to operate. Ship-breaking allows the materials from the ship, especially steel, to be recycled and made into new products. This lowers the demand for mined iron ore and reduces energy use in the steelmaking process. Fixtures and other equipment on board the vessels can also be reused. While ship-breaking is sustainable, there are concerns about its use by poorer countries without stringent environmental legislation. It is also labour-intensive, and considered one of the world's most dangerous industries.
In 2012, roughly 1,250 ocean ships were broken down, and their average age was 26 years. In 2013, the world total of demolished ships amounted to 29,052,000 tonnes, 92% of which were demolished in Asia. As of January 2020, Alang Ship Breaking Yard in India has the largest global share at 30%, followed by Chittagong Ship Breaking Yard in Bangladesh and Gadani Ship Breaking Yard in Pakistan.
The largest sources of ships are China, Greece, and Germany, although there is greater variation in the sources of carriers versus their disposal. The ship-breaking yards of India, Bangladesh, China and Pakistan employ 225,000 workers as well as providing many indirect jobs. In Bangladesh, the recycled steel covers 20% of the country's needs and in India it is almost 10%.
As an alternative to ship breaking, ships may be sunk to create artificial reefs after legally mandated removal of hazardous materials, or sunk in deep ocean waters. Storage is a viable temporary option, whether on land or afloat, though most ships will eventually be scrapped; some will be sunk, or alternatively be retained and preserved as museum ships.
History
Wooden-hulled ships were simply set on fire or "conveniently sunk". In Tudor times, ships were dismantled and the timber re-used. This procedure was no longer applicable with the advent of metal-hulled boats in the 19th century.In 1880 Denny Brothers of Dumbarton used forgings made from scrap maritime steel in their shipbuilding. Many other nations began to purchase British ships for scrap by the late 19th century, including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan. The Italian industry started in 1892, and the Japanese industry after the passing of an 1896 law to subsidise native shipbuilding.
After suffering damage or disaster, liner operators did not want the name of a broken ship to tarnish the brand of their passenger services. Many Victorian ships made their final voyages with the final letter of their name chipped off.
In the 1930s it became cheaper to "beach" a boat by running her ashore—as opposed to using a dry dock. The ship would have to weigh as little as possible and would run ashore at full speed. Dismantling operations required a rise of tide and close proximity to a steel-works. Electric shears, a wrecking ball and oxy-acetylene torches were used. The technique of the time closely resembles that used in developing countries. Thos. W. Ward Ltd., one of the largest breakers in the United Kingdom in the 1930s, would recondition and sell all furniture and machinery. Many historical artifacts were sold at public auctions: the Cunarder, sold as scrap for, received high bids for her fittings worldwide. However, any weapons and military information, even if obsolete, were carefully removed by Navy personnel before turning over the ship for scrapping.
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the cruise ship trade, cruise vessels began to appear more frequently in ship breaking facilities.
Location trends
Until the late 20th century the majority of ship breaking activity took place in the port cities of industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. those dismantlers that still remain in the United States work primarily on government-surplus vessels.Starting in the mid-20th century, East Asian countries with lower labour costs began to dominate ship-breaking. As labour costs rose, centres of the ship-breaking industry moved—initially from countries such as Japan and Hong Kong, to Korea and Taiwan and then to China. For example, the southern port city of Kaohsiung in Taiwan operated as the world's leading dismantling site in the late 1960s and 1970s, breaking up 220 ships totaling 1.6 million tons in 1972 alone; in 1977 Taiwan continued to dominate the industry with more than half the market share, followed by Spain and Pakistan. At the time, Bangladesh had no capacity at all. However, the sector is volatile and fluctuates wildly, and Taiwan processed just two ships 13 years later as wages across East Asia rose. For comparison, depending on their profession, shipbreakers in Kaohsiung earned from to per day in 1973.
In 1960, after a severe cyclone, the Greek ship M D Alpine was stranded on the shores of Sitakunda, Chittagong. It could not be re-floated and so remained there for several years. In 1965 the Chittagong Steel House bought the ship and had it scrapped. It took years to scrap the vessel, but the work gave birth to the industry in Bangladesh.
Until 1980 the Gadani Ship Breaking Yard of Pakistan was the largest ship breaking yard in the world.
Tightening environmental regulations resulted in increased hazardous waste disposal costs in industrialised countries in the 1980s, causing the export of retired ships to lower-income areas, chiefly in South Asia. This, in turn, created a far worse environmental problem, subsequently leading to the Basel Convention of 1989. In 2004 a Basel Convention decision officially classified old ships as "toxic waste", preventing them from leaving a country without the permission of the importing state. This has led to a resurgence of recycling in environmentally compliant locations in developed countries, especially in former shipbuilding yards.
On 31 December 2005 the French Navy's left Toulon to be dismantled at the Alang Ship Breaking Yard, India—despite protests over improper disposal capabilities and facilities for the toxic wastes. On 6 January 2006 the Supreme Court of India temporarily denied access to Alang, and the French Conseil d'État ordered Clemenceau to return to French waters. Able UK in Hartlepool received a new disassembly contract to use accepted practices in scrapping the ship. The dismantling started on 18 November 2009 and the break-up was completed by the end of 2010; the event was considered a turning point in the treatment of redundant vessels. Europe and the United States have had a resurgence in ship scrapping since the 1990s.
In 2009 the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association won a legal case prohibiting all substandard ship breaking. For 14 months the industry could not import ships and thousands of jobs were lost before the ban was annulled. That same year, the global recession and lower demand for goods led to an increase in the supply of ships for decommissioning. The rate of scrapping is inversely correlated to the freight price, which collapsed in 2009.
Technique
The decommissioning process is entirely different in developed countries than it is in third world countries. In both cases, ship-breakers bid for the ship, and the highest bidder wins the contract. The ship-breaker then acquires the vessel from the international broker who deals in outdated ships. The price paid is approximately $400 per tonne; regions with more lax environmental legislation typically can offer higher prices. For the industry in Bangladesh, 69% of revenue is spent on purchasing vessels; only 2% is labour costs. The ship is taken to the decommissioning location either under its own power or with the use of tugs.Developing countries
In developing countries, chiefly the Indian subcontinent, ships are run ashore on gently sloping sand tidal beaches at high tide so that they can be accessed for disassembly. In the beaching method, no external source of energy is used to pull the ship, as opposed to the dry dock method of ship recycling where a ship is floated into the dry dock using a substantial amount of energy. However, maneuvering a large ship onto a beach at high speed takes skill and daring even for a specialist captain, and is not always successful. Next, the anchor is dropped to steady the ship and the engine is shut down. It takes 50 labourers about three months to break down a normal-sized cargo vessel of about 40,000 tonnes.Before the decommissioning begins, various clearances and permissions are obtained from regulatory, pollution and customs authorities after a thorough inspection is conducted by them. The ship recycling process then begins with the draining of fuel, hydraulic fluid, coolant, lubricating oils and firefighting liquid which may be disposed of or sold to the trade. Any reusable fixtures are sold to the trade. Any kind of waste such as plastic, garbage, or oily sand is sent to waste treatment facilities, like the Common Hazardous Waste Treatment Storage Disposal Facility set up by the Gujarat Maritime Board in Alang. Any usable oil is sent to government authorized refineries where used oil is chemically treated. The next steps entail recovering unused and partially spent materials, disposal of bilge water, recovering and obtaining reusable materials, and safe disposal of bio-hazardous materials like asbestos and glass wool. Each of these materials are inspected and sent to regulated waste treatment facilities or to buyers for further use and processing.
In recycling yards in the Indian subcontinent, specifically in Alang, upgraded facilities such as 100% impervious floors with drainage systems, heavy-lift cranes, yard and vessel-specific training for workers, and the development and implementation of Ship Recycling Facility Plans and Ship Recycling Plans and MEPC.196) have been implemented.