Sustainable Ship Recycling in Bangladesh

The aim of the project is to focus on the current problems related to environment, health, safety, and social aspects of the ship recycling industry in Bangladesh. As part of the project, TÜV Rheinland conducts awareness-building programs and helps companies to build capacity as well as optimize their work techniques so that they comply with international standards and best practices.

TÜV Rheinland India is involved in the public-private partnership (PPP) project “Holistic Program for Sustainable and Environmentally Balanced Safer Ship Recycling in Bangladesh” (SEBSSR). The project is funded by DEG (Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft) Germany, Europe’s largest development finance institutions. Assistance is provided by an NGO and the Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association, the local partners to address the problems related to the environment, health, safety, and social aspects in the ship recycling industry in the South Asian country.

In Bangladesh, more than 197 big ships are being dismantled every year. Bangladesh has more than 30 ship-breaking yards along the 5 kilometer coastline at Sitakundu in Chittagong. Most of the ships are sent without prior information about hazardous wastes that have not yet been cleaned up, which puts the whole coastal area at high risk, especially in Chittagong (which is the center of ship-breaking activities). Toxic chemicals and hazardous materials like asbestos, PVC, PCB, paints, oil sludge, burned oil, heavy metals, etc. are not managed in an environmentally sound way; the beach is black due to oil spills, and fish have started disappearing.

The ship-breaking industry is a great contributor to the national economy of Bangladesh. It supplies scrap iron to the industry and offers employment opportunities for the workers. But at the same time – due to its careless and malfunctioning operation – it is also responsible for importing waste from the West, which is a danger for the environment and the coastal ecology, and also a death trap for the workers.

The Department of Environment (Environment Ministry of Bangladesh), Department of Labour (Labour Ministry of Bangladesh), the Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association, and leading NGOs have been actively participating in the project to make the project sustainable. Only through the coordinated efforts of the government of Bangladesh, ship breakers, NGOs, trade unions, relevant UN agencies, and the international community have the working conditions in Bangladeshi yards been improved.
With the implementation of the PPP project, appropriate measures are being taken to help the ship-breaking industry in Bangladesh to become compatible with international standards regarding labor, health, and environment.

The joint efforts behind the PPP project will lead to:

• saving the environment and the workers when the government of Bangladesh takes responsibility to ensure respect of domestic legislation in the yards;
• harmonizing the laws of the country with international human rights standards;
• coordinating with all the players, from workers to the policymakers, for enforcing the existing legislations regarding workers’ rights and environmental protection.

The project’s aim is to address the current problems of the industry and help the ship-breaking companies comply with international standards and best practices. Some of the standards that would be part of this project are: SRMS (Ship Recycling Management Systems) – ISO 30000; OHSAS 18000 – Occupation Health and Safety Assessment Series for Health and Safety Management Systems.

1. Inform – This part of the program would seek to create awareness through mass mobilization programs that would generate an overall attentiveness about the best management systems and health and safety standards in the ship-breaking industry.

Means adopted:

• Awareness campaigns / seminars

2. Involve – At this level, the idea would be to create a pool of 10 to 15 internal experts who will be able to create the multiplier effect to sustain the initiatives of the project. Multiplier expert pools will be composed of people from various stakeholder interests – industry associations, chambers of commerce, academia, and government ministries – that would be trained to create a broad-based impact in the target region.

Means adopted:

• “Train the Trainer” workshops
• Seminars

3. Implement – At the third level, the project would seek to showcase the benefits of aligning practices with international standards and adopting best practices by directly implementing them in 10 selected ship-breaking companies. The companies would be offered a host of services including in-house trainings, consulting, mock assessments and audits. After project completion, the companies should be able to achieve a higher competitiveness in the local market as well as internationally.

Means adopted:

• Consulting
• Assessment
• Auditing
  

The ship-breaking industry expects much growth in its activities. There will be 50,000 new jobs created, which will help the country fight the global recession and boost the growth of the stakeholders involved. The project will also strengthen the companies to adopt measures that will help increase their profitability, implement continuous improvement methodologies, and also provide recognition in order to attract new business from global market.

TÜV Rheinland India successfully completed level 1 (awareness campaigns / seminars), is currently carrying out level 2 (“Train the Trainer” workshop and also seminars), and will soon be implementing level 3 (implementation) of the project. The success of the project will ensure that ship-breaking is hazard-free and that the challenges faced by ship-breaking companies are addressed without compromising on environmental, health or safety issues. The project will also enable ship-breaking companies to showcase their sustainable successes to various stakeholders – local government, society, etc.