Official documents for practicing.

1. Ship Breaking in the World-
System: The Case of India
and Bangladesh
R. Scott Frey
Senior Fulbright Scholar
Center for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Studies
Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City
and
Professor of Sociology
Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Social Justice
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
USA

2. Two Interrelated Questions Inform Today’s Talk
1. Does globalization promote environmental
injustice? If yes how? (Có phải quá trình toàn cầu hóa
đang làm trầm trọng thêm sự BBĐ về môi trường?
Nếu đúng thì như thế nào?)
2. How can we understand the link between
globalization and environmental injustice? Through
the ship breaking case (Làm thế nào để hiểu được
mối liên hệ giữa toàn cầu hóa và bất bình đẳng về
môi trường? )

3. The Face of Globalization and
Environmental Injustice in Bhopal, India

4. The Face of Globalization and
Environmental Injustice in an E-Waste
Recycling Village in southern China
SOURCE: Basel Action Network (2001)

5. The Face of Globalization and Environmental
Injustice in a Ship Breaking Yard in India
SOURCE: Greenpeace
Photograph: Edward Burtynsky

6. Proceed in Five Steps
1. Environmental Injustice in the World-System
2. The Case of Ship Breaking in the World-System
3. The Nature of Ship Breaking
4. Health and Environmental Risks Associated with
Ship Breaking
5. Transnational and Other Responses to Ship
Breaking

7. Figure 2. Distribution of Economic
Wealth in the World-System

8. Figure 3. The Ecological Footprints of
Nations

9. Figure 4. Production of Waste in the
World-System: The Cross-National
Variation of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

10. The Process of Ecological Unequal Exchange
in the World-System (“Accumulation by
Extraction and Contamination”)
• Wealth (in the form of materials, energy, etc.) flows from the
resource rich countries of the periphery to the industrialized
countries of the core, resulting often in problems of resource
depletion and degradation (matter and energy), and pollution
in the periphery or the “resource extraction frontiers”
• The core displaces anti-wealth or appropriates carrying
capacity or waste assimilation by transporting it to the
global sinks or the sinks of the periphery in the form of
hazardous exports. In other words, global sinks and the
peripheral zones of the world-system are essentially “waste-
disposal frontiers”

11. Hazardous Exports to the Global Sinks: The
Atmosphere and Oceans
• Heavy metals
• CFCs
• Carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gasses

12. Hazardous Exports to the Periphery
• Hazardous products in the face of declining
markets - e.g., cigarettes, asbestos, pesticides, etc.
• Hazardous production processes to reduce
costs
• Hazardous wastes to reduce costs

13. Adverse Consequences
• Such hazards damage the environment and adversely affect
human health through environmental and occupational
exposure
• Peripheral countries are particularly vulnerable to the risks
posed by hazardous products, production processes, and
wastes for several reasons
 Limited public awareness
 A young, poorly trained, and unhealthy workforce
 Politically unresponsive state agencies
 Inadequate risk assessment and management capabilities

14. Who Wins and Who Loses?
• The core benefits from the transfer of hazards to
the periphery while the periphery bears the costs
associated with such exports
• Risks associated with hazardous exports are
distributed in an unequal fashion within the
periphery: some groups (the state and capital) are
able to capture the benefits while others (those
marginalized by gender, age, class, race/ethnicity,
and geographic location) bear the costs

15. II. Ship Breaking in the World-System

16. The Current Shipping Industry in the World-
System
• The shipping industry is an important component
of the infrastructure underlying the world
system’s social metabolism
• A majority of the international trade in goods
travels by sea (80% of all raw materials and
manufactured goods)
• An estimated 95,000 ocean-going vessels were
operating in the early 21st Century

17. Types of Ocean-Going Vessels
Oil tankers
Cruise ships
Container ships
Bulk carriers
Chemical tankers
General cargo

19. Basic Facts about Ship Breaking
• The very vessels that transport wealth to the core and
anti-wealth to the periphery are sent to the periphery for
scrapping
• After an average life-span of 28 years, ocean-going
vessels are typically scrapped for their steel and other
resources when age or market conditions reduce profit
generating ability through brokers located in London,
Dubai, Singapore, and other locations
• Roughly 1,000 of the 95,000 ocean-going vessels are sold
each year to brokers for scrapping in Asia because of
cheap labor costs and limited regulations

20. Some ship breaking facts continued
• Vessels (typically owned by interests based in the
core) are exported to Bangladesh, China, India,
Pakistan, and the Philippines where labor is cheap
and health, safety, and environmental regulations are
weak
• In other words, the cost of scrapping ships in the core
has exceeded the price obtained from the scrapped
metal, so ship breaking moved to the periphery
• Slightly more than 60 percent of these ships go to
Alang, India ([43%] often described as the ship
breaking capital of the world-system) and Chittagong,
Bangladesh (21%)

21. Alang, India and Chittagong, Bangladesh: Two Major
Ship Breaking Sites in the World-System

22. Breaking Yard in Alang
SOURCE: Google

23. Welcome to Alang, India Where Safety Is
Their Motto
SOURCE: Google

24. Ship Breaking Yard in Alang,
India

25. III. The Nature of Ship Breaking
SOURCE: Buerk (2006)

26. Major Steps in Breaking a Ship
 The ship is beached at full speed during high tide
 Flammable gases are vented by hammering or punching
large holes in the hull
 Ships are stripped of all furnishings and related material such
as asbestos, wiring, life boats, life vests, navigation
equipment, foam, etc., and sold along the road outside the
yards
 Large sections of the ship are cut off and dragged closer to
shore by giant winches
 Large sections are cut into smaller pieces
 Teams of men carry the metal sections to trucks for loading
and removal (average time is 3 to 6 months with 150 to 300
workers)
 The steel is recycled and used nationally in building and road
construction

27. Full speed ahead to the beach
SOURCE: Basel Action Network

31. A Young Worker
Source: Google

32. A Beached Ship
SOURCE: Greenpeace.
SOURCE: Greenpeace

33. A Ship Breaking Crew
SOURCE: Greenpeace

34. A Crew in Bangladesh
SOURCE: Greenpeace

37. P
h
o

39. Source: Google

40. Workers in Chittagong
Source: Google

41. Night in Chittagong
Source: Fame Pictures/Barcroft Media

42. End-of-Life Ship
SOURCE: R S C Anjan / driknews

43. A Flat Plain in Bangladesh?
Photograph: Edward Burtynsky

44. Last Days of an Old Ship
Photograph: Edward Burtynsky

45. Nothing is wasted - fire extinguishers for sale
along the road outside the shipping yard in
Chittagong, Bangladesh
SOURCE: Basel Action Network

46. IV. Health and Environmental Risks
Source: Google

47. Hazardous Materials
95% of the bulk of an ocean-going vessel is steel and
the remaining 5% consists of hazardous materials which are
hazardous to the environment and human health
 Asbestos
 Fuel residues
 Heavy Metals: arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury
 Persistent Organic Pollutants: dioxins, PVCs

48. Working Conditions
• Workers use torches to break down the ships
• Working conditions are unsafe and workers are
exposed to toxic materials
Little safety equipment
Stripping of asbestos by hand
Torching of steel covered with paints containing
lead, cadmium, and arsenic
Much of the toxic waste is left in the local
environment

49. Working conditions continued
Labor conditions are grave
 7:00 to 7:00 daily, six days per week
 Low wages
 No contract and rights
 Accidents are common
 Hundreds of workers perish every year

50. Living Conditions
• These migrant workers live in shanties
without families
• Polluted environment
• No running water, electricity, limited
sanitation, etc.
• Crime, HIV/AIDS

51. Breaking Steel
Source: Google

52. SOURCE: Shipbreaking Platform

53. Burning Wastes
Source: Google

54. Torching Steel
Source: Google

55. Wastes Dumped into the Local Environment
Source: Google

56. Safety Equipment
SOURCE: Basel Action Network

57. Carrying Asbestos
SOURCE: Basel Action Network

58. Source: Google

59. V. Responses to Ship Breaking
SOURCE: Greenpeace

60. Responses by Level
• International
• National
• Local

61. International NGOs
• Greenpeace – raised public awareness world-wide
• BAN (Basel Action Network) – campaigned for the
Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary
Movements in Hazardous Wastes
• Platform on Shipbreaking (POS) – organization
consisting of human rights, labor, and environmental
groups combating shipping industry

62. Other International
Organizations
• International Maritime Organization
• International Labor Organization
• United Nations Environment Programme
• Issued initiatives and guidelines but little impact

63. National NGOs in Bangladesh
and India
• Toxic Links
• Corporate Accountability Desk
• Human Rights Law Network
• Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers
Association
• Young Power in Social Action

64. Labor Organizations at the
Local Level in India and
Bangladesh
• Alang Ship Recycling and General Workers’
Association
• The organization has sponsored strikes for increased
wages and working conditions with limited success

65. Greenpeace and the Other Organizations
Have Made Various Recommendations
SOURCE: Greenpeace

66. Recommendations
• Ship breaking yards should be open to NGOs, trade unions,
and other groups
• Operating ships should be made cleaner through
maintenance and retrofitting
• A global regulatory regime should be developed to regulate
ship breaking
• The next generation of ships should be constructed to reduce
health, safety, and environmental impacts at the time of
decommissioning

67. • Ship owners should be responsible for the clean and safe
dismantling of ships
• Workers should be protected through improved safety
practices

68. In Conclusion: Capital
Accumulation in the Core through
the Contamination of the
Peripheral Zones of the World-
System
Globalization and environmental
justice are contradictory tendencies in
the current world-system