However, the site by now is covered in black bunker fuel and a rebound in ship-breaking may prove to be a disaster for the ecosystem on the Arabian Sea coast, unless corrective measures are taken.
The ship owners, on an average, earn around Rs120-150 million profit per vessel while yard owners charge rent worth millions of rupees. But thousands of workers coming from different parts of the country are paid only Rs120 to 200 per day with no safety gear and no health cover.
These poor workers are not provided even proper protective masks Which would guard them against toxic fumes generated from steel-cutting processor, nor any protective gear or breathing apparatus when they are handling harmful carcinogenic asbestos or stripping the material from any vessel. They are given only towels to cover their faces. Toxic substances permeate even their living quarters.
The ship-breaking yard is an important centre of economic activity for the impoverished province of Balochistan. The yard set up in the early 1970s became the second largest ship-breaking yard of the world. In 1999, the yard was the third largest yard employing about 10,000 workers meeting one-third of the scrap requirements of the country’s re-rolling mills.
In Pakistan, excessive duties have affected the volume of inputs of the industry, which has been quite low, as compared with such yards in Bangladesh, China and India where the duties are much lower. In recent times, non-availability of raw material—ship plates— has forced re-rolling mills to switch over to iron billet from the Pakistan Steel(PS). This has increased the demand for the PS’s billet, the price of which has gone up substantially. But now the government has slashed the withholding tax and thus encouraged investors to book old ships for scrapping at Gadani. A majority of ships scrapped are oil tankers.The Gadani yard owners specialize in breaking the large tonnage vessels that included the ‘Sea Giant’, a tanker of 555,051 dead weight tonnage (dwt) in September 2003.
There are roughly 45,000 ocean-going ships in the world including container ships, general cargo ships and cruise liners. Each year about 700 ships are expected to be taken out of service and scrapped to retrieve their steel content.
Between now and 2015, the European Commission estimates that up to 250 ships need to be recycled every year. By 2007,the new laws after the Erika oil spill imply at least 1300 single-hulled tankers will need to be phased out and scrapped. Prior to the 1970s, ships were either sunk or taken apart at yards where they were built.
In late 1970s, due to the high costs of upholding environmental, health and safety standards in Europe, shipping industry moved to poorer Asian states. Now, the old ships containing toxic materials are being scrapped manually, in poorer Asian countries, on open beaches under inhuman working conditions. Underdeveloped countries are also the better markets for the recyclable materials. The European navies also dispose of their ships by selling them to other navies in the developing world.
Almost all ocean-going ships, while often owned or operated by companies in developed countries, are currently scrapped in developing countries including China, India, Bangladesh, Philippines and Pakistan where labour is significantly cheaper, workers are desperate for work and environmental and occupational laws are lax.
Most ships being dismantled today were built in the 1970s, prior to the banning of many hazardous substances. In the 1970s, materials were chosen exclusively according to maximum fulfilment of the function for which they were intended.
All old ships contain hazardous substances such as asbestos, lead paint, heavy metals and PCBs. Large amounts of asbestos were used as a fire retardant. To prevent ships from rusting, anti-corrosives like lead oxide and zinc chromate were used. To ensure that the hull is free from algae, molluscs and barnacles antifouling paints, containing mercury, arsenic, and Tributyl Tin (TBT), were applied.
Ships also contain a wide range of other hazardous wastes for example sealants containing Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and several thousand litres of oil (engine fuel, bilge oil, hydraulic and lubrication oils and greases. Tankers additionally hold up to 1,000 cubic meters of residual oil.
US environmental regulations consider PCBs highly toxic and require handling and disposal of PCBs by certified and trained personnel. In USA, PCBs are finally disposed off in certified landfill under strict regulatory controls. In Europe, these materials are subject to special monitoring and highly regulated disposal due to potential adverse health impacts.
By any standards, the demolition of ships is a dirty and dangerous occupation. In Pakistan ships are dismantled manually with no safety gear and workers are exposed to toxic substances.
There are no checks or inspections and no required permit regulating ships containing hazardous waste. There are no mandated inspections to conform that toxic substances found in vessels to be scrapped, are below the limit of international safety standards. There exits no control which could specify that certain types of vessels with classified toxins are banned or otherwise prohibited from being scrapped.
For developing the ship-breaking, import tariffs for ships must be kept at competitive rates, and the government should induct new technology so that the industry as a whole becomes more productive and more safe.
Steps for safety of workers’ health and protection of environment must be taken by the owners of the yards. Workers face risks frequently due to fires and explosion, suffocation and inhaling CO2. They often fall off the ships.
The hardest and most dangerous job is done by the welders who work inside the hull, dangling in total darkness amid overpowering fumes from oil and the gas from their torches. As a result of frequent accidents, some workers loose their lives. There is no medical facility at Gadani and just one or two ambulances to take injured men on an hour’s drive to a hospital in Karachi.
The government should provide proper health facilities in Gadani town so that emergency cases could be treated without any delay. There is also need for the workers to be trained for safety work procedures and handling of toxic material. Through proper checks or inspections, the government should ensure that ships that come for demolition are free of contaminants and dangerous chemicals.