The Shipbreakers of China:

Shipbreaking -- for the few Americans who know anything about it, the term invokes disturbing images of unprotected workers laboring in the shadow of hulking ship bodies on defiled beaches (in large part, thanks to William Langweische's landmark article on Indian shipbreaking for The Atlantic). And, indeed, that's an accurate depiction of how shipbreaking is done in most parts of the developing world.

But the situation is changing in parts of Asia, in part because savvy Chinese steel and recycling entrepreneurs figured out that China's still relatively cheap labor allows them to offer environmentally-sound shipbreaking at prices that can't be matched in the developed world; and, in part, because Chinese workers simply won't tolerate Bangladesh-level working conditions and pay. These factors, and others, mean that Chinese shipbreakers sometimes lose ship auctions to breakers in lower-cost countries (with their own, or nearby, steel industries to feed).

But when the market is right, China is a favored destination for this difficult, dangerous type of scrap metal. In 2009, its best year, China scrapped more than 400 ships -- top in the world -- ranging from oil tankers to tug boats. The photo below, taken from the deck of an automobile carrier in the process of being scrapped, shows a panorama of Asia's biggest ship breaking yard, with the steel which purchases its scrap in the very deep background. I strongly encourage clicking on it for an expanded version.

Of course, not every Chinese shipbreaker is a model of environmental stewardship, but generally conditions are much improved over the last decade, especially as compared to India and Bangladesh. And this, I believe, is an optimistic development for an industry long associated with some of the developing world's most graphic industrial catastrophes, and a country -- China -- desperate to show environmental leadership.

Source: The Atlantic. 4 March 2011. By Adam Minter.  Adam Minter is an American writer in Shanghai, China. He blogs at Shanghai Scrap.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/the-shipbreakers-of-china/71976/