Page 119 from: May 2008
May 2008 119
Tom Mele, the author
of this article, is the
owner of Connecticut
Metal Industries Inc.,
Ansonia, Connecticut,
USA.
He can be contacted at: [email protected]
www.ctmetal.com
S H I P B R E A K I N G
workers and headed for the shore. As we
approached the bow, it became apparent this
tanker had not been scrapped prematurely.
As I discovered on my last adventure, the way
into a dead ship is up a painter’s ladder and
through a small hole cut in the bow. I was
escorted by the safety manager and yard fore-
man, who seemed a little tentative about my
ability to climb on board. I managed without
mishap, and we continued up another ladder
and popped through a well-rusted hatch onto
the sunny deck.
There were blotches of rust and large scales of
missing paint on every surface. It made me
shudder to think this old scow was recently
fi lled with liquefi ed natural gas. There was a
good reason for the ‘No Smoking’ warnings
painted everywhere.
From the back of the boat, a long, deep groove
was visible where the keel had scraped the
bottom as it was beached. The tide was all the
way out now, and as I looked down I could see
only dry sand and the occasional puddle fi lled
with mud fi sh. The shore and the sandy sea
bottom were surprisingly clean, at least on the
Leela side of the fence.
Impressive sight
Ships were everywhere. Looking south, a Nor-
wegian ro-ro ferry was listing in the mud and
directly north was a scabrous Ukrainian
freighter just kissing the shoreline. Off in the
distance was the unmistakable silhouette of the
‘SS France/Norway/Blue Lady’ stuck fast about
500 metres offshore. To a scrap metal person, it
is an impressive sight. A monster car shredder
is small potatoes compared with these multi-
thousand-tonne recycling challenges.
My handlers tagged along, but pretty much
gave me free reign. Everyone on board, includ-
ing me, was fully outfi tted with jumpsuits,
hard hats and respirators. The work of getting
this vessel ready for cutting seemed to be pro-
ceeding in an orderly and neat fashion. A work
crew was rounding up rubbish and sealing it in
blue poly bags for transfer on shore. They were
in the fi nal stages of venting any closed tanks
and removing traces of oil and grease. A peek
into the wheelhouse revealed a colourful Bud-
dhist altar, left intact by the Muslim and Hindu
staff. Around the wheelhouse were unpainted
squares and dangling wires from where large
electronic gear had been removed. I was told
that customs offi cials board all vessels offshore
and earmark certain electronics for destruc-
tion. The ship’s telegraph was stuck in the ‘off ’
position, where it will undoubtedly stay until it
is carried off to the bazaar.
On my last trip, I got to tour a 60 000-tonne oil
tanker that made ‘The Gas Tiger’ look like a
toy. Both were equally exciting to explore but I
learned these smaller vessels have become the
norm in Alang. Because of their better tax
incentives, little or no international scrutiny
and higher prices, the big ships have been lost
to the cutting beaches at Chittagong in Bangla-
desh. There is also competition from ship-
breakers in Pakistan, China, Korea and Turkey.
Higher prices from Bangladesh
For the past four years, the operations in Ban-
gladesh have consistently paid US$ 30-50 a
tonne more than their Indian competitors. As
a result, the unregulated breakers at Chittagong
have garnered more than half the world’s busi-
ness while the Alang scrap tonnage has been
steadily dropping. Oddly enough, the dramatic
images of Edward Burtynsky and Sebastiao
Salgado that highlight the worst abuses of the
industry were actually shot in Chittagong. To
further irritate the Alang yard owners, most
people mistakenly attribute these dramatic
Chittagong photos to India.
After leaving the Leela yard, I decided to take
a drive along the waterfront to have a look
around. I realised a lot had changed in the last
four years. I passed a new fi rehouse with
impressive engines that would look at home
in any suburban fi re department. There is
also a new workers’ training centre where
safety and hazardous materials training class-
es are held for Gujarat’s shipyard workers. It is
a beautiful facility and I was proudly shown
some certifi cation cards issued by the centre.
There is also a police station, bank, cinema,
hospital and all the trappings of a small city.
The entire operation is overseen by the Guja-
rat Maritime Board which looks after the
infrastructure and leases plots to the private
recycling companies.
Tough times
A little way up the road, I got a look at the new
landfi ll with its hazardous waste disposal site.
This was set up by the Maritime Board as an
on-site disposal and solidifi cation station for
the area’s solid waste, asbestos and other haz-
ardous materials removed during dismantling.
It is a fully-lined landfi ll operated by GEPIL, an
outside ISO 14001 environmental contractor.
Although this industry has had a tough cou-
ple of years, there were some marked improve-
ments since I last toured Alang. Will these
changes and the on-going ‘green’ efforts ulti-
mately pay off for the Indian shipbreaking
industry?
It is a risk but, after the return of the ‘Clem-
enceau’, there is little choice. The Gujarat Mari-
time Board, members of the Alang Ship Recy-
clers Association and the Supreme Court have
woken up to the demands of their customers
and the world environmental community. The
oceans are large, and there are higher-priced
and less visible markets where ship owners can
choose to dispose of their old ships. It remains
to be seen whether the Alang gamble on clean,
responsible recycling will attract the vessels
needed to save these Gujarat operations.
Tom Mele of Connecticut Metal Industries (middle)
with a group of workers at the Leela Ship Recycling yard.
A white Bhrama cow is taking a sunbath outside the Sun-N-Sand hotel
in Bhavnagar, India. The circles to the left are cow manure pies drying
out for use as fuel.
RI_023_Shipbreaking.indd 6 15-05-2008 08:59:14
