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SYEDA RIZWANA HASAN reveals the appalling health and environmental hazards of the ship breaking yards in Chittagong and shows how the concerned ministries are toying with High Court orders to stop hazardous as well as illegal operation of this industry.

The industry of ship breaking in Bangladesh is about 25 years old. It started when a ship was stranded on the coast of Sitakunda due to the devastating storm on November 12 November, 1970. Locals broke the ship spontaneously and out of curiosity. Twenty years down the road, ships started coming to Bangladesh for breaking purposes and started the journey of what is now called an industry. It is an industry because it meets the legal requirement of employing more than 50 workers and also because it has been mentioned in the list of industry under the Labour Act of 2006. It, however, falls short of all safety and environmental standards that an industry under the same Act is required to meet. In the years from 2009-2011, 31 labourers were killed in accidents while working. These are the years when normal operation of the industry was time and again interrupted by the highest court of the country in a bid to regulate the rowdy business. Needless to say, the recorded number of deaths and casualties was much higher in years without judicial oversight.

Photo: Anurup Kanti Das

Worldwide, this industry is largely avoided in consideration of the environmental and health risks that it entails. Till the 1970s ship breaking was a recognised industry in almost all developed countries. With increased awareness of its deadly chemical released into the environment and also with more stringent environmental laws, the trade started shifting towards the global south. In Asia, it was initially the south-eastern countries that accepted the industry, but soon they too discouraged it on the same ground of labour safety and environmental contamination. It then moved to South Asia and since then has begun to grow along the beaches of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. It, of course, has a place in China where it is largely mechanised and mostly regulated through dry dock operation. In contrast, in the South Asian countries ships are broken manually. About 200 malnourished and poverty-stricken labourers break a ship in a period of two months. This is the kind of employment that the industry provides in addition to the low quality iron that BUET long back warned of as unfit for important constructions.

Now let us ask the fundamental question: What does a ship destined to be broken contain? Or in other words, what is it that prompts the owners of the ships to dump their 'resources' in countries like ours? It is most likely that ships destined to be broken contain asbestos, PCBs, ODS, lead, heavy metals, liquid wastes, acidic wastes and so on. The amount of these contaminants depends on the type of the ship. Mostly passenger ships and oil tankers are sent for breaking purposes. While India leads the breaking of passenger ships, Bangladesh imports oil tankers more. An oil tanker of one lakh ton may contain 2,413 kg of asbestos, 3,448 kg of PVC, 8,275 kg of TBT, 19 thousand kg of heavy metal, 1,27,100 liters of hazardous oil and 6, 89, 655 liters of sludge.

Exposure to some of these contaminants can even cause cancer. There is no safe limit for asbestos as even a small of its particle can cause deadly asbestosis canner to the labourers. Many of these contaminants are bio-accumulative and persistent. They poison marine organisms and the traits of soil. Oil spill threatens natural resources, birds and contaminates soil and surface water. Lead and arsenic contamination are so feared in the developed countries that most of their ship breaking yards have to display cautionary signboards in local language stating "Cancer Zone: Entry Limited!". Yards in Bangladesh do not contain any such cautionary notes and the labourers of the yards are never told about the health hazards they are exposed to.

In 2010, the World Bank has published a study that presents a rather conservative figure of wastes that will enter the country with the obsolete end-of-life ships. Stating the primitive state of operation of the ship breaking yards, the World Bank in its report has warned that from 2010-2030 the ship breaking yards will have to deal with the following amount of wastes-

Despite the repeated incidents of death, regular pictures of oil spillage in the coast and the dreadful predictions made by expert agencies, the efforts of the government in regulating the industry is frustrating. The High Court directives with regard to the location, mode of operation and monitoring of the industry are all being deliberately flouted even by the government agencies. On March 5 and 17, and May 11, 2010, the High Court made it categorically clear that no ship can enter Bangladesh without having a certificate from a certified agency of the exporting country to the effect that the ship has been pre-cleaned outside the territory of Bangladesh and that it contains no hazardous wastes. The Court directed framing of rules on ship breaking and hazardous waste management on the basis of six national and international laws in force. The Court also directed the formation of a High Powered Committee to monitor the implementation of the Rules and compliance by the yards with the safety and pollution regulating requirements.

The Ministry of Environment started it well but soon succumbed to pressure that came from the political masters. They incorporated the ship breakers in the committee that is to monitor them and eventually made the committee non-functional. They took three years to finalise the rules and that again in clear deviation from the directions of the Court. While the Court directed ban on import of ships that are not pre-cleaned, the gazette version of the Rules of the Ministry of Environment states that ships that are imported without being cleaned shall not be allowed to be broken. This indeed is a clever move as it clearly allows dirty ships to enter the country and puts the regulation merely on its breaking. This in effect means that the business shall continue as before and the Ministry will safely pass the tests regarding import on the shoulders of the Customs department. It will give environmental clearance to all breakers on the plea that the permission of the Customs department for ships to enter Bangladesh prove that the ships have all necessary documentation including pre-cleaning certificates.

Photo: Archive

It is sad that an agency responsible for protecting the environment is so indifferent to its purpose. With the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) persistently failing to comply with the time frame given by the Court for finalizing the Rules, the Court at one stage banned import of ships till full compliance with its judgment is ensured. This prompted the ship breakers to team up with their supporters in the ruling party. They did it successfully. At a juncture when the High Court was going tough on non-compliance, an amendment was brought to the rules of business of the ministries and ship breaking was included in the agenda of the Ministry of Industries. An enthusiastic industry minister expressed his hope that one day in Bangladesh, ship breaking will be even bigger an industry than the ready-made garments. With him as the patron of this inherently dangerous industry, a rule on ship breaking was gazetted on November 12, 2011. While one can congratulate this Ministry for finalising the rule before the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), it is also to be noted that this rule is in complete deviation from the High Court orders and proposes totally different institutional set-up and processes than that of the MoEF rules. MoEF could only notify a second set of rules and that it contains no hazardous wastes. The Court directed framing of rules on ship breaking and hazardous waste management on the basis of six national and international laws in force. The Court also directed the formation of a High Powered Committee to monitor the implementation of the Rules and compliance by the yards with the safety and pollution regulating requirements.

It is sad that an agency responsible for protecting the environment is so indifferent to its purpose. With the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) persistently failing to comply with the time frame given by the Court for finalizing the Rules, the Court at one stage banned import of ships till full compliance with its judgment is ensured. This prompted the ship breakers to team up with their supporters in the ruling party. They did it successfully. At a juncture when the High Court was going tough on non-compliance, an amendment was brought to the rules of business of the ministries and ship breaking was included in the agenda of the Ministry of Industries. An enthusiastic industry minister expressed his hope that one day in Bangladesh, ship breaking will be even bigger an industry than the ready-made garments. With him as the patron of this inherently dangerous industry, a rule on ship breaking was gazetted on November 12, 2011. While one can congratulate this Ministry for finalising the rule before the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), it is also to be noted that this rule is in complete deviation from the High Court orders and proposes totally different institutional set-up and processes than that of the MoEF rules. MoEF could only notify a second set of rules on ship breaking on November 28, 2011 i.e, 16 days after the Ministry of Industry published its rules!

Photo: DRIK

The Supreme Court did not approve any of these rules. It referred the matter back to the High Court to see if the Rules comply with the directives of the High Court. While the judicial scrutiny of the rules remains pending, not less than 200 ships, with highly questionable documentation on waste-flow, have been imported despite the earlier ban on import which has not been expressly lifted and the conditions given by the High Court remaining unfulfilled!

Clearly, the current politics of the country is in favour of this industry, an industry that most countries of the world have rejected not in compliance with their court order or in response to the outcry of the environmentalists, but in consideration of greater public interest that was properly weighed against the environmental contamination and health effects of the industry. It is most likely that in future too politics will remain biased to the industry and its moneyed players, and instead of looking for cost-effective and safer alternatives, will continue to buy misleading arguments of iron supply and employment.

With such powerful yet misinformed and non-committed politics in place, the only hope in fighting back this deadly industry either to phase it out or to regulate it strictly lies perhaps in the implementation of the judicial pronouncements. With proven governmental bias for the ship-breakers, this can only be ensured perhaps with regular monitoring by an independent forum. While the government claims significant improvement in the environment of the yards and only selected foreign agencies willing to contribute to 'further improvement' are allowed to enter the yards, both the government and the yard owners are unwilling to allow independent third party inspection of the yards. No ministry is learnt to have taken any measure to comply with the order of the Court dated October 27, 2011 to form a committee of independent experts to assess whether the ship breaking yards have been complying with the directions of the Court.

Sadly enough, no ministry is prepared to answer for the 31 deaths that occurred only due to their strong commitment for the business and total lack of commitment for human safety and environment, and also for the rule of law! No ministry is also concerned to move the industry from tidal beach to dry docks. After the pronouncement of the judgment and the series of subsequent orders that all required the industry to be regulated, the number of ship breaking yards has increased three times at the cost of coastal forest and the irreplaceable sandy beach that, due to their sensitive nature, only demanded special protective measures from the state agencies.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan is Chief Executive, Bangladesh Environment Lawyers' Association (BELA).