Development of an assessment model for the sustainable ship recycling industry in Bangladesh

Abstract

Ship breaking and recycling is a reverse engineering process of shipbuilding, where the end-of-life (EOL) ships are dismantled to recover reusable materials in a safe and environmental friendly way. Until 1960s, ship recycling activity was concentrated in industrialized countries. But from early 1980s, ship owner’s sent their old ship to the scrap-yards of India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc; where health and safety standards are nominal and workers are desperate for work. There are few dozen ship-recycling yards located along coastal belt at Chittagong of Bangladesh. Average 200 in number and 2000000 LDT different types and sizes of obsolete ships are recycled annually in local yards of Bangladesh. This industry provides country’s main source of steel, creates opportunity of employment, generates revenues for government and contributes to the local shipbuilding industry. The beaching method is widely applied in the local ship recycling by using semi-skilled and unskilled labor in Bangladesh. In fact, without enhancing its overall standard in terms of health, safety and environmental (HSE) aspects, this industry will not be able to compete with the global competitors and lose the business in future. But the problem is that due to the restrictive nature of the industry, the actual situation of the industry is never assessed extensively. Very few studies have been found so far, but mostly those were based on limited preliminary base line study or secondary data analysis. Considering the above circumstances, the present research work focuses on describing the actual practice and process of ship recycling industry of Bangladesh on the basis of extensive field study. 26 nos. of different types of ships which were dismantled by the local ship breaking yard over last few year in Chittagong have been taken for this study. The basic data of all types of reusable and waste materials of these ships dismantled and recycled by the local recycling yards of Bangladesh have been collected, compiled and analyzed by direct physical involvement of the researcher. Material flow analysis (MFA) software STAN and Microsoft Excel (MS) have been used for data entry, analysis, compilation, calculation and determination of numerical value; like, average annual amount and factor of reusable and waste material respectively of the local ship recycling industry. The relation among average reusable, waste and asbestos factors with LDT of EOL ships recycled in local yards of Bangladesh has been described and determined in this thesis work. So it is possible to calculate annual reusable and waste material amount for different types of ships; as well as total amount of annual reusable and waste material for any year at future if the number and different types of ships recycled in the concern years is available. So, all those factors and results are really useful for the entire ship recycling industry and as well as managerial, business and decision making process both now and future. It has been found that an average 1833461 MT (minimum) and 1989252 MT (maximum) reusable materials produced annually from ship recycling industry of Bangladesh. Again, there has been average 17215 MT (minimum) and 22702 MT (maximum) hazardous waste produced annually from local active recycling yards of Bangladesh.

Nine different subjects have been selected for the analysis of ship recycling process and for developing an assessment model for sustainable ship recycling industry of Bangladesh. Relevant data regarding subject matters such as: ship recycling knowledge and regulatory framework assessment; hazard and risk awareness assessment; environment awareness assessment; inventory of hazardous material assessment; personal protection and safety equipment assessment; employee wellbeing and health assessment; yard management assessment; Hazardous material handling and management assessment and ship recycling process assessment have been collected from the selected local ship recycling yards through survey and analysis. The proposed assessment model can be applicable for local recycling yards to assess their standard, which will be helpful to achieve sustainability of the industry as a whole. If we can assess our yards and industry in more scientific and professional way as discussed in the developed assessment model, then it is possible to dig out our problem and the space to improve the entire industry as a whole. If guidelines and ship recycling process and procedures discussed in this research work could be implemented through a user friendly and knowledgebase system, it is possible to achieve a competent and sustainable ship recycling industry in Bangladesh.