Alang Shipbreaking Yard: Profits Over Safety

Minimal protective gear is given to those who cut metal in Alang

Alang's industrial downturn has been blamed on tight safety regulations, but it is government policies and the unwillingness of shipbreakers to invest in safety that are crippling the industry.

It is 4 a.m. on a January morning in Alang. About 2 nautical miles from shore, a ship waits, lights blazing. The captain takes his instructions from Alang Control: he is told to switch off all lights except those used for navigation. He charts his course - full speed ahead and directly towards the shore. The green and red navigation lights come closer at an alarming speed until the ship stops suddenly, its bow embedded deep in the soft mud. The Captain's voice, heavy with melancholy, reports over the wireless: "Beaching successful."

While the mood on board the ship is understandably subdued at the vessel's last journey, the mood on shore is joyful. The yard mukadam surveys the vessel in the early morning darkness and gives his professional opinion on the potential of the scrap it may generate and the ease of the job. His words are listened to carefully; men of his level of experience and training are increasingly difficult to find since Alang no longer offers the job potential it used to. Indeed, the arrival of this ship has been the cause of some celebration; beachings are no longer as commonplace as they once were.

The industry has been slipping into the doldrums for over a year. Of the original 180 plots (as the private shipbreaking yards are referred to) only 26 are functional. Up to December 2005 there were only 73 ships in Alang and about 4,000 workers - a far cry from the yard's record peak during 1997-98 when Alang employed over 40,000 workers and its 180 plots worked to their maximum capacity to handle the 347 ships that were waiting to be broken.

Business was booming not just for the shipyard owners and their workers, but also for the numerous ancillary industries that were wholly dependent on shipbreaking. Oil re-processing units, steel re-rolling mills, iron scrap, oxygen plants, foundries and the many kilometres of shops at Alang that trade in items from the ships are all industries that sprang up around the business of shipbreaking. These too have been severely hit.

80% of the steel re-rolling mills have shut down because of the poor flow of basic material from the yards. And only 12% of oxygen cylinder plants are still operational because of the drop in demand for metal cutting. The transport industry has also been severely hit. When ship-breaking was at its peak, a long-distance truck transporter could be sure of at least one trip in 10 days. This has now dropped to one trip every five weeks or so. The ship-breaking industry continues to thrive worldwide. What, therefore, is the reason for its decline at Asia's largest shipbreaking yard?

It is a common public misconception, indeed a convenient excuse, that the rules imposed by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC) on Hazardous Wastes are responsible for killing the trade at Alang. The Ship Recycling Industries Association (SRIA), India, admits this. Joint secretary of the SRIA Nitin Kanakiya bluntly states that it is the policies of the State and Central governments that have been largely responsible for the sharp drop in India's share in ship-recycling activities, mainly, unfavourable duty structures, additional tax burdens and tax concessions given to the steel industry in Kutch.

One of the greatest concerns of the Alang shipbreakers is that they are losing out to shipyards in Bangladesh, Pakistan and China. Those yards, they say, not only are less particular about international regulations, but, more significantly, have the support of their governments as far as tax structures and concessions are concerned. He told Frontline: "In India the ship demolition industry was always on a par with melting scrap [differentiated from the ship demolition industry by the fact that the scrap industry would melt any metal] but for the last four years or so we have been burdened with a 5% customs duty that is higher than that of melting scrap. This means that the resale value of metal obtained from recycling ships will be higher than that of metal from the scrap industry. Naturally, potential buyers would favour the recycled scrap metal."

A dismembered ship beached with thermocol, a hazardous waste, stacked in the open

Similarly, there is what is referred to as the Kutch factor, a complete tax break from Central and State taxes for the steel industry in Kutch. The attempt is an obvious one to create industries and employment in the region, and steel units responded by setting up units there. The downside of this 15-year tax break has meant that Alang steel cannot compete with Kutch steel in the market. "High operative costs, inflexibility of the government to modify regulations and the uncertainty of the renewal of our yard leases by the Gujarat Maritime Board [GMB] have all added to our problem," says Vippin Aggrawal, honorary secretary of the SRIA.

Despite acknowledging factors other than the environmental and safety regulations as responsible for the deterioration, the SRIA does not hide its antagonism towards "hypocrites and antagonists like Greenpeace and other NGOs [non-governmental organisations]" who enforce the "rigid norms of First World standards." While accepting that the regulations are essential, Aggrawal believes that the shipbreakers are paying for their open-mindedness to change. "India is the only [Asian] country that lets Greenpeace have its say. Why not go to China or Bangladesh or Pakistan? They know that they will not be tolerated there for one moment. We fulfill all the statutory obligations for environmental and worker safety. I agree that some years ago it was not as good as it is now for the environment or for the workers but it has been a learning process even for us and we are open about this."

The claim that all regulations are being followed is disputed by P.S. Nagarsheth, who has been in the business for 45 years and has been the president of the Iron Steel Scrap and Ship breakers Association of India for the past 15 years. Nagarsheth says, "The GMB is not interested in implementing the regulations. The overall appearance of the yard has to improve. Masks, helmets, safety shoes and goggles should be widely seen. We are in a peculiar situation and if we are wise we will maximise it. Because of this Clemenceau issue, the world is watching us now. We should use this chance to improve our image so that the whole world says `Let us sell ships only to India. They do things the right way.'" Differentiating between "acceptance of rules and application of them", Nagarsheth says neither the shipbreakers nor the GMB is serious about the application of the regulations.

The shipbreakers' often-used phrase - "it is a learning process" - is almost a cover for the wrongdoings of the past. Their plea remains that prior to the introduction of SCMC regulations, the dangers of handling waste from ships was not known at the time and therefore they should not be held responsible. Even if this argument (weak as it is) is accepted, it still does not explain why workers were never provided with basic safety gear like helmets, goggles, safety shoes and gloves. It stands to reason that handling heavy machinery and materials is a hazardous job and shipbreakers should have automatically provided safety clothing. Prior to the SCMC regulations, safety gear was practically unheard of at the yards.

Nagarsheth says that investment in safety gear is still minimal and all yards should be forced into buying enough for their workers. However, when asked about the special equipment required for handling hazardous material such as asbestos, he expressed an almost naïve confidence in the existing techniques of dealing with the material: "You just have to ensure that the asbestos is kept wet when cutting it. The main thing is that the powder should not fly about and that the workers should wear full protective clothing and masks." This method of handling a highly toxic material was shared by all the shipbreakers. They asserted that there have been no ill effects on workers handling asbestos.

Asbestos insulation being removed from a pipe in a so-called contained area in Alang

At present the asbestos, which is primarily in the form of insulation, is dealt with in the following way -

It is taken to a contained area, sprayed with water and then manually scraped off the pipes. The powder and shavings are then put into a mortar pipe, sealed and deposited in a lined landfill.

The so-called contained area is usually just separated from the rest of the environment by a low wall of plastic sheeting and is open to the sky. Compared to the earlier system where asbestos was scraped off the pipes and just dumped in open spaces, this new method is advanced and, as far as the shipbreakers are concerned, adequate. At present the disposal of hazardous waste is handled by a company called Gujarat Environment Protection and Infrastructure Ltd. The filled cement pipes are transported to Naroda, near Ahmedabad, and deposited in a landfill.

The GMB has also started 3 landfills at Alangone, which have a capacity of 48,000 cubic metres.

The process of decontaminating asbestos is expensive - the very fact that France chose only to clean partially the Clemenceau is an indicator of this. And the row created over the arrival of the ship by Greenpeace has gained further momentum with the purchase of an asbestos decontamination unit that Shree Ram Vessel Scrap Pvt. Ltd. says is currently on board the Clemenceau.

It is this expense (costs were not obtainable) that led SCMC member Dr. Claude Alvares to comment to Frontline: "As a result of all these measures, the number of active shipbreaking plots has come down from 180 to less than 50. So the environment and worker conditions are slowly killing the industry... Bangladeshi and Chinese shipbreaking yards are the main beneficiaries."

It has to be emphasised that it is not the regulations that are killing the industry, but the unwillingness of shipbreakers to spend from their profits and purchase the necessary decontamination equipment. The current argument used by shipbreakers against improvement is that it is not worth their while considering the slump in the industry. The fact remains that even when Alang was at peak production, the existing Red Cross hospital onsite was nothing more than a first aid centre with skeletal services.

absence of safety goggles and other equipment is common in small-scale industries related to shipbreaking, such as this scrapyard in Bhavnagar

The shipbreakers' belief that safety norms are adequate at Alang is contradicted by the saying "Alang se palang" [From Alang to deathbed] which is common among Alang's workers. The saying pithily conveys the fact that anyone who works in Alang will sooner or later end up in hospital.

Then (as now) all those injured have to make the one-hour-long journey to Bhavnagar's Civil Hospital or to a private practitioner in Bhavnagar. A recent look at the Civil Hospital records showed that no patient had been admitted from Alang in the last 6 months. This, however, can be attributed to the slowing down of work in the yards than to any special provisions for worker safety.

Dr. Sanjay Parikh, an orthopaedic surgeon who owns a private hospital in Bhavnagar, recalls the cases that came to him when he started his practice in 1994. According to him, the majority of the cases were head injuries and polytrauma of the lower limbs, mostly caused through crushing by heavy weights.

From 1994 to about 2002, when Alang was booming, Parikh saw about 8 polytrauma patients a month and 40 to 50 small fracture outpatient department patients.

He says fellow private practitioners in orthopaedics, as well as other branches, saw many Alang patients but no comprehensive record of this was immediately available. Indeed, one of the reasons why shipbreakers preferred to send patients to private doctors despite the extra costs (borne by themselves) was, as Parikh said, "to avoid the medico-legal hassles" though he reported the cases that came to him.

Parikh says that though cases usually reached him as soon as possible, the emergency care onsite is negligible. "They have nil primary treatment at Alang. Not even an intravenous drip for bleeding fractures. The majority of my patients would arrive in a state of shock because of a loss of fluids. Some died in transit.

Just the use of an endotracheal tube for a head injury drastically increases his [a patient's] chances of survival. But they cannot even provide this." In many of the polytrauma cases, patients were disabled permanently. With shortened limbs or severe knee problems, re-employment at Alang was not likely. "Compensation seems to have been a problem because many would come back and ask for a disability certificate," said Parikh.

Monitoring the safety of workers is easier at Alang than monitoring the environment. Obvious infringements like dumping waste thermocol and asbestos can be monitored; an assessment of water pollution is more difficult because of the tidal nature of the Gulf of Khambat, which washes away residue. An analysis done by Dr. Prashant Bhatt, Professor of analytical chemistry at Bhavnagar University, shows that there is a heavy concentration of toxic metals in the inter-tidal zone near Alang. His study, conducted over a 2-year period, concluded that even if the industry were shut down, deposits would be present for the next 20 years.

Bhatt is among the few people who have suggested that dry-docking be initiated at Alang. "This will avoid cutting ships while still afloat and hence avoid water pollution." Cutting is forbidden but continues because of the physical restrictions of bringing a large vessel closer to land in its original size. Bhatt has also conducted a study of the subsidiary industries around shipbreaking and found that while shipyards are subjected to monitoring, ancillary industries are not. "The actual pollution occurs at steel re-rolling mills. Once the steel plate is removed from the ship it goes to the mill where it is put straight into the furnace. No cleaning is done. All the volatile organic matter of marine paint and anti-fouling paints - that is lead, arsenic, pesticides - goes straight into the furnace. The resultant air is highly toxic." So toxic is the air that Bhatt says that foundries in the area around steel re-rolling mills have been complaining of corrosion. "The main corrosion problem occurs in the monsoon when the rains bring down all the toxic materials as acid rain," he says.

Some ideas of the intentions of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) are seen from the fact that the department has only just set up an office at Bhavnagar. Earlier Alang was the responsibility of the Rajkot office, about 178 km away. The office is still understaffed, with 4 environment engineers and 6 laboratory scientists. Basic monitoring tools and a laboratory are yet to be sanctioned for the Bhavnagar office. Monitoring the landfills is also the GPCB's responsibility. A system of record-keeping exists, but prior to the landfills there was no record of any of the hazardous waste at Alang.

An official who declined to be identified said, "The idea of landfills has been around since 1996 but the will to use them and implement safety procedures is very recent." The magnitude of the GPCB's task is understood when it is seen that a GPCB official needs to be present on every ship prior to its being allowed to be beached. An average inspection takes about 6 hours. In the present condition with few ships at Alang an inspection can be carried out with some degree of thoroughness, but the integrity of this is likely to be compromised if the number of ships increases. While there seems to be a general but guarded consensus that the situation in Alang is improving, the proof of it will only be seen once the yards are fully functional. Then, in the toss-up between maximising profit and minimising worker injury and environmental damage, the real concerns of the shipbreakers will be clear.

Source: Frontline (Volume 23 - Issue 02, Jan. 28 - Feb. 10, 2006) By Lyla Bavadam

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2302/stories/20060210007701100.htm

Don’t put Clemenceau and Norway in same category:

Letter To The Editor:

SIR, I write in response to the continuing attention by the media and non-governmental organisations on efforts to recycle the Clemenceau and the SS Norway.

These ships are being lumped into a single category of “what is wrong with ship recycling”. Further inspection, however, shows a significant difference in the efforts of the two ownership groups to engage in responsible ship recycling for their respective vessels. 

Clemenceau:

The Clemenceau has received the lion’s share of attention in the media, and various nations have bowed to politics and responded by making irrational decisions, disallowing the ship to even enter their territorial waters. But what steps have actually taken place, amid the controversy and confusion, to ensure that the Clemenceau is recycled in a responsible manner?

First, the French government performed, at least some, pre-cleaning work and removed significant amounts of asbestos from the ship. Questions remain as to the amount of asbestos remaining, but some level of remediation has occurred. 

French Warship - The Clemenceau

Next, the ship was sold for recycling at Alang, with a reported additional involvement of an environmental engineering firm that is to be involved in further remediation and disposal of hazardous materials at Alang.

Despite NGO claims that Alang has “no facility for handling of PCBs, etc” (‘Clemenceau likely to contain cancer-causing PCBs’; newKarala.com), the Gujarat Maritime Board launched a new hazardous waste reception facility in 2005, specifically for the treatment and disposal of such materials near Alang.

In summary, the French government has:

1) Performed some level of remediation work to clean the Clemenceau of asbestos, and

2) Sold the ship to a shipyard that has reported the involvement of an environmental remediation firm to handle additional hazardous materials from the ship upon arrival. If proper reporting and project transparency are involved in the latter stages of this operation, it would appear that this project is being developed, theoretically, in an environmentally and occupationally responsible manner.

SS Norway:

According to Greenpeace, the SS Norway is known to hold approximately 1,200 tons of asbestos and will surely hold significant amounts of PCBs and other hazardous materials.

To date, no reports have been made as to any agreements for the proper removal and disposal of these hazardous materials. The fate of the Norwayis yet unknown, so the possibility exists that proper remediation work may eventually occur.

However, to date this is not the case. So why is all the attention then focused on Clemenceau and almost nothing on Norway?

One owner has apparently made significant strides toward responsible ship recycling and the other appears to have made no effort whatsoever to reach this goal. Secondly, one ship allegedly has almost 40 times more asbestos than the other. Yet, the world seems to be silent. Could it be that western governments make soft, juicy targets?

While intense pressure from NGOs have led to increased awareness on ship recycling as a whole, strides to actually conduct responsible ship recycling in India should be recognised as such, and not merely discarded as more of the same.

Ted Higson, Consultant, Global Ship Recycling Solutions LLC, United States

Source: Llyoid’s List. LetterToTheEditor. By Ted Higson. 8 February 2006  

http://www.gmsinc.net/gms/news/february_8_2006_clemenceau.pdf

HIV looms over Indian shipbreaking yards:

Long separation from the family, pathetic working conditions in shipbreaking and recycling yards and comparatively good money are prompting the large population of migrant workers in Alang, Gujarat, to go to sex workers and thereby increase the risk of contracting HIV infection.

This necklace shaped shipbreaking yard, located on the western flank of Gulf of Cambay, is considered one of the biggest shipbreaking and recycling yards in the world and is a home to thousands of migrants from Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

"The migrant workers who live in the shipbreaking yards of Alang and Sosiya exhibit inclination to visit sex workers and thereby increase the risk of contracting HIV infections," said Dr Niloo Vaishnav, Chairman of Bhavnagar Blood Bank.

                          

"We conducted HIV survey of the migrant workers of Alang shipbreaking yards from July 2004 to September by taking samples of 2155 people. The result indicated that 0.7 per cent of the people tested HIV positive," he said.

Vaishnav said though the result is not alarming, what is a matter of concern is their High Risk Behaviour. If the number of HIV infection is less, it is only because the sex workers whom they are visiting may not be having the infection. But their behaviour is definitely a matter of concern and hence we are creating awareness among the workers," he added.

Gujarat facing the dragon's threat

The study was conducted under the auspices of Project AIDS, Bhavnagar Blood Bank which is engaged in AIDS education and prevention work in Alang for over 10 years focusing on reducing high risk behaviour among the workers, Vaishnav said.

"As with other migrant workforce, the HIV status of the Alang population was of special interest because of long separation of the workers from home and family and the frequent visit to local sex workers," he added.

Vidyut Joshi, former Vice Chancellor of Bhavnagar University who has made a detailed study of the problems of the shipbreaking yards of Alang and Sosiya, said, "There is a growing sex worker industry in and around ASSBY. Knowing that most of the men are living alone for a long time, the sex workers know their physical needs and hence they come there often to lure them."

Ranjan Macwana, Project officer of Project AIDS who is working in Alang, told PTI that they were working to effect behavioural changes among the men by educating them about the need to use condoms whenever they go to the sex workers.

"Our aim is mainly Sexually Transmitted Disease management, condom promotion and high risk behavioural change communication. This is done through peer educators and volunteers who identify workers indulging in high risk behaviours and then are given counseling," she added.

Sameer Solanki, Field officer with AIDS Project, said to create awareness among the workers, they involve themselves with the workers on the occasion of religious festivals such as Durga Puja, Ganapati puja, befriend them, win their confidence and then create awareness among them about HIV prevention through safe sex.

Vaishnav said since there are no notified red light areas in Saurashtra, the workers visit the sex workers in Bhavnagar and Rajkot. They also visit villagers in the coastal areas where some women from fishermen community do part time work as sex workers to supplement their income.

Besides HIV, there is also prevalence of Hepatitis B among some of the workers. Among the sample workers, a total of 3.9 per cent had contracted Hepatitis virus.

Other health problems associated with the workers included skin diseases, eye problems, filaria and STDs. Workers who cut hazardous substance such as asbestos are also susceptible to asbestosis - an irreversible lung disease, said Dr. Vidyut Joshi who has done a study along with UNESCO.

Source: Rediff.com. Chandran Iyer in Alang | January 30, 2006

http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jan/30alang.htm

Breaking Down Toxic Ships: Junkyard justice at Alang

The Clemenceau has set sail for India, and the spotlight is on the shipbreaking industry at Alang, where workers' safety takes a last-row seat and owners operate without fear of regulatory enforcement or punishment. Ramesh Menon writes that the toxic cargo presents an opportunity to reverse this tide of disgrace.

13 January 2006 - The French warship Clemenceau was decommissioned at Toulon in France way back in 1977, and lay there all these years as no country wanted it, even as scrap. With good reason - they decided it is a toxic ship with a huge amount of asbestos. The 27,000 tonne aircraft carrier, however, made news on New Year's Day as it set sail heading to the shores of Alang, the largest shipbreaking yard in the world, in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. Just days before 2006 was rung in, a French court okayed the sending of the warship insulated with asbestos to India, after rejecting petitions by campaigners trying to block its transfer. Then, environmental activists of Greenpeace and other organizations managed to break the tight security and board the ship to shout slogans against it being sent to India, where impoverished workers would break down the toxic ship, with its 500+ tonnes of asbestos.

It would spread death and disease, the activists warned, quite apart from violating the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, which clearly prohibits one country transporting its toxic waste to another. The asbestos within could cause cancer and other health complications, warn activists, noting that this is precisely why other countries had refused to let the Clemenceau sail to their shores. Earlier attempts to send the ship to Turkey and Greece did not work as both countries refused the toxic ship for obvious reasons.

(Click on: http://www.greenpeace.org/alang to read the Greenpeace report on shipbreaking: End of Life Ships - the Human Costs of Breaking Ships)

Ravi Aggarwal, director of New Delhi-based Toxics Link and member of the Basel Action Network says that the sending of the ship to India is a clear violation of international law. "The French are now trying to say that it is not a ship but material of war and so cannot be covered under the Basel convention. At the moment it is being towed by another ship to India and it is clearly a case of toxic waste being shipped. It is completely illegal and allowing it should not set a precedent." His fears are well founded, with over 2000 oil tankers that are going to come up for breaking in the next 4 years. These oil tankers are very old ships and carry a lot of asbestos material within. Aggarwal also points to special laws like the Management and Handling Rules 1989 (Amended in 2003) which says that asbestos is a hazardous waste and needs special provisions to handle it. Alang does not have the capacity to handle asbestos, he said.

Since the furore broke, a Monitoring Committee of the Supreme Court on Hazardous Wastes Management has declared that the Clemenceau should not enter India. Committee Chairman G. Thyagarajan said it was not desirable for the ship to enter Indian waters. And if it were allowed, it would have to furnish a bank guarantee of Rs. 80 crore - twice the value of the ship. Said Thyagarajan: "Why should India spend Rs. 40 crore in foreign exchange to buy trouble? Why should we sacrifice our precious soil to bury some other country's junk?"

The French government had claimed that the ship contained only a few tonnes of asbestos as it has been decontaminated. Low levels of contamination may be acceptable to the monitoring committee, whose members are to meet again to review the decision before the ship arrives. But Eric Baudon and Jean-Claude Giannino, representatives of Technopure, the French company contracted to decontaminate the ship, told the Committee that the ship had only been partially decontaminated and it still contained at least 500 tonnes of asbestos.

"Why should there be any further review when those who decontaminated the ship say that there are 500 tonnes left?", asks an indignant Ramapathy Kumar of Greenpeace, India. "The question is not of quantity of the toxic waste, the issue here is that India cannot permit the ship as it is a signatory to the Basel Convention which forbids one country from sending its toxic waste to another country," he said. In France, the Committee's decision has attracted huge media attention as the Clemenceau episode is being increasingly seen as an eloquent reminder on how developed nations treat poorer countries in Asia.

India does not have strict rules at Alang. For over 2 decades now, the yard has been in the vortex of controversy, as it became an environmental bomb of sorts. Labour rules are flouted and India has done little to protect workers - who are mostly migrants from poverty struck districts in Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal. Alang is pockmarked with poor working conditions and a poor quality of life; the employment it has provided to thousands of labourers has been at a very heavy cost. Greenpeace says that workers die every month there because of its pathetic working conditions. Workers do not even have the mandatory protective gear while working in one of the dirtiest industries in the world. The laxity has attracted business; Greenpeace says that almost half of the world's ships that need to be scrapped now end up in India, and shipbreakers are laughing all the way to the bank, even as workers bear the brunt of regulatory failure.

Why is asbestos dangerous? Asbestos is resistant to heat and chemicals. Asbestos fibre is very very thin, a few hundred times thinner than human hair and is very durable. This is why it was in the past used as roofing material. One of its varieties, blue asbestos is banned in India. But in the shipbreaking yard of Alang, it can be found easily, as it was used in old ships that are broken down here. Automobiles also use it in brake and clutch lining pads. It is also used in floor tiles and pipes that carry water and sewage. When bound together it is relatively safe and the harm is done only when fine particles of the fibre are breathed by humans and thus enter the lungs. Over a period of time, exposure to the fibre can lead to a condition called asbestosis, and could also cause lung cancer.

It is possible to decontaminate large ships of their asbestos and other toxic materials by almost ninety percent, but most ship owners do not do this, as it is very cost intensive. It is easier for them to send it off to poor countries like Bangladesh and India where the laws are weak and whatever few regulations exist are not enforced. The French government claims it has removed around 115 tonnes of asbestos from the ship, but Greenpeace activists say that it is lying.

Says Ramapathy: "India must reject the ship, sending a signal to the world that it is not a dumping ground. If we allow this ship, there are another 120 warships of the United States that will now come for shipbreaking. All these ships were rejected by India in 1997. Greenpeace is not against the shipbreaking industry. All that we want is clean shipreabreaking that will not endanger health."

In December 2005, Greenpeace and the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues pointed out that countries that send their ships to India are actually condoning a poorly regulated system that has already killed many labourers. It said that accidents, explosions and contamination from hazardous waste have affected workers. The Clemenceau controversy has triggered a new demand by Greenpeace, Corporate Accountability Group and other organizations like the Centre for Indian Trade Unions to ensure stricter regulations for the shipbreaking industry.

There is good reason to worry. Alang's 40,000+ workers work in subhuman conditions, are not securely clad with overalls and helmets and work with their bare hands as they cut into the steel to earn a meagre wage. More than half a dozen workers die every month at the yard due to accidents or explosions. Workers use cutters and blowtorches to cut the steel and pipes containing gas or oil. Often, the shipowner does not disclose the dangerous content in the ship, and this result in explosions. As scores of rusting ships are beached at Alang one beside the other, accidents are common. Employers, who are typically hard-nosed businessmen, only look at the money that comes in. For Alang, the Clemenceau is a great catch as it is estimated to yield nearly 22,000 tonnes of steel.

Most of the ships that come to Alang are from United States, Yugoslavia, Poland, Russia, China and Japan. Nearly 300 ships are broken at Alang every year. Shipbreakers fear that the numbers will now fall at Alang as there is stiff competition from Bangladesh and China, which are also violating laws to woo business.

Gujarat, say activists, is particularly lax at protecting workers in hazardous industries, and would rather have the ship. Even chemicals that are banned elsewhere in the world are in production here. Ramapathy Kumar says, "The Gujarat Pollution Board is lying when it says that it is in a position to handle the waste as it is such a huge ship that it cannot be beached and will stay away atleast 3000 feet away. If it is to be decontaminated in India, it has to be done on a platform as it would otherwise pollute the water. Even one mg of asbestos can damage the lungs."

While so much of dust has been kicked up on the issue of the toxic ship that contains 500 tonnes of asbestos, the fact that thousands of tonnes of asbestos is wrecking havoc in the Indian countryside, is being lost. Asbestos is widely used in India for roofing, water pipes and construction. As there is heavy punitive litigation in the developed world against asbestos manufacturers and users, its usage has today collapsed to 2% of what it was 2 decades ago. But in India, consumption of asbestos is rising by an alarming 12%. There is no reliable data on asbestos-related diseases among Indian workers. As many as 36 countries in the world have banned asbestos. The European Union banned it in 2005. Interestingly, France banned all forms of asbestos fibres and products in 1977. Says Maneka Gandhi, former Union Enviornment Minister and MP: "Our entire policy on asbestos needs to be changed. We must stop being the junkyard of the world."

The Clémenceau aircraft carrier

Clearly, an opportunity to stop being the junkyard of the world is at hand, but will India take it? Or will business as in the past prevail, putting workers' health and national interests aside?

Source: India Together. By Ramesh Menon. 13 Jan 2006

http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/jan/env-toxicship.htm 

Hot Metal With Steel Soaring: A Ghost Fleet Is In High Demand

• Shipbreakers Vie for Scrap From Navy's Discards
• Concerns on Environment
• An Indian Player's Big Plans

CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- Harsh Mishra, a businessman from India, stepped carefully along the jagged hull of a 50-year-old Navy submarine-rescue ship called the Sunbird. His workers had spent days tearing it open like a giant sardine can, revealing a maze of bunkrooms, pipes and engines below.

"Money doesn't always look pretty," said the 46-year-old, speaking through a haze of fumes from noisy diesel engines and odors from aged, rotting ship hulls.

Dismantling the 220-foot ship took three months and generated 1,200 tons of scrap metal valued at about $300,000, not including the engines, anchors and propellers that were sold separately. The U.S. government paid Mr. Mishra's company, Bay Bridge Enterprises LLC, an additional $85,920 just to take the ship, laden with environmental hazards, off its hands.

The Sunbird came from a group of about 129 old ships, collectively known as the "Ghost Fleet," which sit idle in a half-dozen ports around the U.S. These ships, maintained by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Maritime Administration, or Marad, have become a juicy target for the industry known as shipbreaking. All but shut down for a few years in the late 1990s amid environmental concerns, the shipbreaking business in the U.S. is now making a comeback. It is being fueled by a convergence of government action with developments in the global steel, energy and freight industries.

The driving force is the steel business, which is booming amid demand from China and other fast-growing economies. Just under two-thirds of the one billion tons, or $400 billion, in new steel produced each year comes from iron ore; the rest is recycled from torn-up cars, washing machines, ships and other forms of scrap metal.

Steel mills around the world buy roughly $100 billion of scrap steel each year. Old ships are a major source of this recycled steel, providing as much as 5% of the scrap metal consumed annually.

Voracious Appetite:

But there's a shortage of old ships available to feed the steel industry's voracious appetite. With a global commodity boom under way, older ships are being kept in operation longer than normal to carry freight, oil, coal and other raw materials, not to mention huge amounts of scrap steel. Shipbuilders are expanding production, but it typically takes three years to build and launch a new freighter. Despite the huge demand for steel, Lloyd's List, a London-based maritime-industry trade publication, reports that about 232 vessels were scrapped in the first 10 months of 2005, down from 422 ships scrapped during the same period last year.

That helps explain why Mr. Mishra and other shipbreakers are fighting for a piece of the Ghost Fleet. Old ships can be bought all over the world, but the U.S. has one of the largest government-owned stockpiles and an active program to get rid of the ships for scrap or other uses.

Marad maintains three fleets in Virginia, Texas and California, spending thousands a year per ship trying to prevent corrosion, mold and mildew growth. As ship custodians for the federal government, the agency decides when to get rid of ships by paying a company to scrap them. Otherwise, the agency can sink ships in the ocean, either as part of military testing or to create artificial reefs for fish and scuba divers.

Shipbreaking has a long, dangerous and environmentally tainted history. Places like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and China have become huge centers for shipbreaking. Lax regulations in many places allow companies to simply drag ships onto beaches and tear them apart. That creates huge environmental and worker-safety concerns. Workers in those countries often lack basic safety gear and can be exposed to dangerous substances like asbestos. Oil and other hazardous materials are routinely spilled into the sea.

Highest Bidder:

For years, commercial and government owners of old ships in the U.S. and other countries sold their ghost ships to the highest bidder, home or abroad. In the U.S., the dirty business was handled by a shadowy group of companies that dodged environmental regulations by frequently moving and changing company names. The business was virtually shut down after a series of articles in the Baltimore Sun in 1997 exposed industry practices. The government tightened regulations on domestic companies and stopped scrapping vessels overseas. A backlog of aging government ships soon developed.

Now, the U.S. government is forcing Marad to get rid of its current batch of aging ships quickly to avoid expensive maintenance costs. With tight environmental rules making shipbreaking more expensive in the U.S., Marad pays domestic firms to take the Ghost Fleet ships.

Workers at Bay Bridge Enterprises in Virginia cut scrap metal from the inside of the Sunbird, a submarine-rescue ship that was dismantled at the shipbreaking facility.

The policy shift has been a boon in recent years for domestic shipbreakers, including four in Brownsville, Texas: International Shipbreaking Ltd., ESCO Marine Inc., Marine Metals Inc. and All Star Metals LLC. It also required them to change their practices and business models.

Richard Jaross, 65, president of ESCO Marine and a 35-year industry veteran, says the industry has moved from being labor intensive to capital intensive. With 160 employees and about $25 million in revenue, ESCO is spending millions on new equipment to cut and clean metal from the ships, he says. He has hired environmental experts to make sure workers follow government regulations on removing and disposing of fuel, asbestos and other chemicals as they tear apart the ships.

In 2003, Marad, concerned that domestic shipbreakers couldn't dispose of the ships fast enough, tried to send 13 ships to Able UK Ltd., a shipbreaker in Teesside, England. Environmental groups on both sides of the water fought the transfer of the ships. Delivery of the last nine ships is being held up by a lawsuit in the United Kingdom.

U.S. environmental groups say they would rather have government ships scrapped in the U.S. "From an environmental perspective, we should be responsible for our own waste," says Michael Town, Virginia chapter director of the Sierra Club. "And if we sent the ships overseas, we can't control the environmental impacts." He said that although shipbreaking is an industry few want in their community, the U.S. companies are more responsible and also provide hundreds of jobs.

In the confluence of Marad's backlog and the strong demand for scrap steel, Mr. Mishra's firm Adani Group, a fast-growing commodity-trading company based in Ahmedabad, India, sees an opportunity to become the biggest U.S. player.

Adani, with annual revenue of $3 billion, is the largest importer of coal to India as well as a major importer of scrap metal. Shipbreaking is a small new venture for Adani, but it has big plans. It wants to open a second shipbreaking facility on the West Coast and to buy a scrap yard on the East Coast to export up to 1.2 million tons of scrap metal per year to India.

Last June, Adani bought Bay Bridge for less than $10 million, Mr. Mishra says. Bay Bridge operates from a small construction trailer on a football-field-long muddy finger of land extending from an industrial section of Chesapeake into the Elizabeth River. The property has 2 large berths, where ships are parked during dismantling. Two 150-ton cranes loom next to the ships and are used to swing clumps of metal and other debris off the ships. Adani has more than doubled the number of workers at Bay Bridge to 93 since acquiring it.

Already, International Shipbreaking of Brownsville is being forced to compete fiercely with Mr. Mishra's firm, which has been winning a larger share of ships from the government. "For a while, there was nobody cutting ships," says Bob Berry, chief operating officer of International Shipbreaking. "You couldn't do it because of all the environmental regulations and safety regulations you have to deal with. It cost a lot more to scrap a ship than the ship is worth in parts."

Besides the four shipbreaking companies in Texas, there are a couple of others on the East Coast, but virtually none on the West Coast. Hoping to tap the Ghost Fleet in San Francisco Bay without the long, expensive journey through the Panama Canal, Mr. Mishra is planning to set up a second shipbreaking facility in Oregon. He is hoping to select a site by next month and to dismantle nine to 12 government vessels there each year.

In some Oregon towns, Bay Bridge faces opposition from environmentalists, who fear a phenomenon called "hull fouling." The concern is that tiny organisms such as mussels and algae attached to the aging Ghost Fleet vessels docked in San Francisco could harm Oregon's rivers and bays if released there.

Risky Business:

The environment is only one challenge for the industry. "This is an inherently risky business. You could lose your shirt or you could get lucky," says Mr. Mishra. He points out that shipbreakers must bid on contracts months in advance and "you don't know what the steel scrap prices will be four or five months down the line."

The business is also dangerous. Mr. Berry, at International Shipbreaking, says his firm, which employs mostly Hispanic workers, has experienced some fatal worker accidents in recent years. "It can be a dangerous business," says Mr. Berry, "but we make it as safe as it possibly can be."

At Bay Bridge, workers in protective suits and respirators first drain oil and remove hazardous materials such as asbestos-laden insulation and cables coated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. They then rip out copper plumbing, metal bunks and lavatory appliances.

Taking apart the ship itself usually starts at the top, with workers using blowtorches to cut the hull into removable chunks. Shipbreakers must consider the weight and balance of a ship as they do this, to make sure the ship doesn't tip from side to side during the demolition process, potentially injuring workers.

On a recent day, Sheldon "Patrick" Dass and other workers were down inside the Sunbird with hand torches, slicing up rusty file cabinets, piping, sinks, beds and metal walls.

"You've got to know what you are cutting," says Operations Manager Denson Spence, 47, who often joins the men in cutting up the ships. "You don't want to cut the wrong thing." Platforms could collapse, a pipe leading to a tank could explode or a cut below water level could cause water to gush in.

Daniel Reppert, 25, sat behind the wheel of a huge, yellow front-end loader, watching wads of scrap get lowered onto piles in front of him. Mr. Reppert's job was to sort the metal, creating piles of copper piping in one spot, steel plate in another. At a nearby scrap yard, workers sorted the metal further and then ran it through huge shredding machines.

When the work day was done, the men headed for a special locker room in a "decon" trailer in a fenced-off area. They decontaminated their work clothes by placing their white, disposable plastic suits in a sealed bin and their cotton work uniforms in a hamper to be washed. They showered and scrubbed with industrial soaps. Half the laborers at Bay Bridge are Hispanic, and most start at $8.50 an hour.

Bay Bridge gets most of its ships from the Ghost Fleet, which has a collection of ships stationed on the James River, a half-day boat tow away.

The Maritime Administration gave 33 ships and about $35 million to a half-dozen certified recyclers around the country in 2004 and 2005. By contrast, the agency made $35 million from 1991 to 1994 by selling 81 ships, before it stopped selling ships to third-world shipbreakers.

Not all Ghost Fleet ships are earmarked for the scrap yard. Some are bound for museums. Some were called back into service during the Iraq War and during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Others are bound for watery graves. The Hoyt S. Vandenberg, a Cold War-era mobile tracking ship nicknamed "The White Ghost," could be sunk in the Florida Keys to create a fish habitat.

Workers at Bay Bridge Enterprises in Virginia cut scrap metal from the inside of the Sunbird, a submarine-rescue ship that was dismantled at the shipbreaking facility.

Source: Wall Street Journal. By Paul Glader. 10 January 2006

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