New rules may not change dirty and deadly ship recycling business
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh: Mizan Hossain fell 10 metres (33 feet) from the top of a ship he was cutting up on Chittagong beach in Bangladesh—where the majority of the world's maritime giants meet their end—when the vibrations shook him from the upper deck.
He survived, but his back was crushed. "I can't get up in the morning," said the 31-year-old, who has a wife, three children and his parents to support.
"We eat one meal in two, and I see no way out of my situation," said Hossain, his hands swollen beneath a deep scar on his right arm.
The shipbreaking site where Hossain worked—without a harness—did not comply with international safety and environmental standards.
Hossain has been cutting up ships on the sand without proper protection or insurance since he was a child, like many men in his village a few kilometres inland from the giant beached ships.
One of his neighbours had his toes crushed in another yard shortly before AFP visited Chittagong in February.
Shipbreaking yards employ between 20,000 and 30,000 people directly or indirectly in the sprawling port on the Bay of Bengal. But experts say the human and environmental cost of the industry is also immense.
The Hong Kong Convention on the Recycling of Ships, which is meant to regulate one of the world's most dangerous industries, is set to come into effect on June 26.
But many question whether its rules on handling toxic waste and protecting workers are sufficient—or whether they will ever be properly implemented.
Only seven out of Chittagong's 30 yards meet the new rules about equipping workers with helmets, harnesses and other protection, as well as protocols for decontaminating ships of asbestos and other pollutants, and storing hazardous waste.
Chittagong was the final destination of nearly a third of the 409 ships dismantled globally last year, according to the NGO coalition Shipbreaking Platform. Most of the others ended up in India, Pakistan, or Turkey.
But Bangladesh—close to the Asian nerve centre of global maritime commerce—offers the best price for buying end-of-life ships due to its extremely low labour costs, with a minimum monthly wage of around $133 (115 euros).
Chittagong's 25-kilometre stretch of beach is the world's biggest ship graveyard. Giant hulks of oil tankers or gas carriers lie in the mud under the scorching sun, an army of workers slowly dismembering them with oxyacetylene torches.
"When I started (in the 2000s) it was extremely dangerous," said Mohammad Ali, a thickset union leader who long worked without protection dismantling ships on the sand.
"Accidents were frequent, and there were regular deaths and injuries."
He was left incapacitated for months after being hit on the head by a piece of metal. "When there's an accident, you're either dead or disabled," the 48-year-old said.
At least 470 workers have been killed and 512 seriously injured in the shipbreaking yards of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan since 2009, according to Shipbreaking Platform.
No official death toll is kept in Chittagong, but between 10 and 22 workers a year died in its yards between 2018 and 2022, according to a count kept by Mohamed Ali Sahin, founder of a workers' support centre.
There have been improvements in recent years, especially after Dhaka ratified the Hong Kong Convention in 2023, Sahin said.
But seven workers still died last year, and major progress is needed, he added.
The industry is further accused of causing major environmental damage, particularly to mangroves, with oil and heavy metals escaping into the sea from the beach. Asbestos—which is not illegal in Bangladesh—is also dumped in open-air landfills.
Shipbreaking is also blamed for abnormally high levels of arsenic and other metalloids in the region's soil, rice and vegetables, according to a 2024 study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
PHP, the most modern yard in the region, is one of the few in Chittagong that meets the new standards.
Criticism of pollution and working conditions in Bangladeshi yards annoys its managing director, Mohammed Zahirul Islam.
"Just because we're South Asian, with dark skin, are we not capable of excelling in a field?" he told AFP.
"Ships are built in developed countries... then used by Europeans and Westerners for 20 or 30 years, and we get them (at the end) for four months.
"But everything is our fault," he said, as workers in helmets, their faces shielded by plastic visors to protect them from metal shards, dismantled a Japanese gas carrier on a concrete platform near the shore.
"There should be a shared responsibility for everyone involved in this whole cycle," he added.
His yard has modern cranes and even flower beds, but workers are not masked as they are in Europe to protect them from inhaling metal dust and fumes.
However, modernising yards to meet the new standards is costly, with PHP spending $10 million to upgrade its operations.
With the sector in crisis—only half as many ships have been sent for scrap since the pandemic—and Bangladesh hit by instability after the tumultuous ousting of premier Sheikh Hasina in August, investors are reluctant, said John Alonso of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
Chittagong still has no facility to treat or store hazardous materials taken from ships.
PHP encases the asbestos it extracts in cement and stores it on-site in a dedicated room. "I think we have about six to seven years of storage capacity," said its expert, Liton Mamudzer.
But NGOs like Shipbreaking Platform and Robin des Bois are sceptical about how feasible this is, with some ships containing scores of tonnes of asbestos.
Walton Pantland, of the global union federation IndustriALL, questioned whether the Hong Kong standards will be maintained once yards get their certification, with inspections left to local officials.
Indeed, six workers were killed in September in an explosion at SN Corporation's Chittagong yard, which was compliant with the convention.
Shipbreaking Platform said it was symptomatic of a lack of adequate "regulation, supervision and worker protections" in Bangladesh, even with the Hong Kong rules.
The NGO's director, Ingvild Jenssen, said shipowners were using the Hong Kong Convention to bypass the Basel Convention, which bans OECD countries from exporting toxic waste to developing nations.
She accused them of using it to offload toxic ships cheaply at South Asian yards without fear of prosecution, using a flag of convenience or intermediaries.
In contrast, European shipowners are required to dismantle ships based on the continent—or flying a European flag—under the much stricter Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR).
At the Belgian shipbreaking yard Galloo, near the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, demolition chief Peter Wyntin told AFP how ships are broken down into "50 different kinds of materials" to be recycled.
Everything is mechanised, with only five or six workers—wearing helmets, visors and masks to filter the air—doing the actual breaking amid mountains of scrap metal.
A wind turbine supplies electricity, and a net collects anything that falls in the canal. Galloo also invested 10 million euros in water treatment, using activated carbon and bacterial filters.
But Wyntin said it is a struggle to survive, with several European yards forced to shut as Turkish ones with EU certification take much of the business.
While shipbreakers in the EU have "25,000 pages of legislation to comply with," he argued, those in Aliaga on the western coast of Turkey have only 25 pages of rules to respect to be "third-country compliant under SRR."
Wyntin is deeply worried the Hong Kong Convention will further undermine standards—and European yards with them.
"You can certify yards in Turkey or Asia, but it still involves beaching," where ships are dismantled directly on the shore. "And beaching is a process we would never accept in Europe," he insisted.
Turkish health and safety officials reported eight deaths since 2020 at shipbreaking yards in Aliaga, near Izmir, which specialises in dismantling cruise ships.
"If we have a fatality, work inspectors arrive immediately and we risk being shut down," Wyntin told AFP.
In April, Galloo lost a bid to recycle a 13,000-tonne Italian ferry—with 400 tonnes of asbestos—to a Turkish yard, Wyntin said.
Yet in May, the local council in Aliaga said "hazardous waste was stored in an environmentally harmful manner, sometimes just covered with soil."
"It's estimated that 15,000 tonnes of hazardous waste are scattered in the region, endangering human and environmental health due to illegal storage methods," it said on X, posting photos of illegal dumps.
In Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch and Shipbreaking Platform have reported that "toxic materials from ships, including asbestos," are sometimes "resold on the second-hand market."
In Chittagong, everything gets recycled.
On the road along the beach, shops overflow with furniture, toilets, generators and staircases taken straight from the hulks pulled up on the beach a few metres away.
Not far away, Rekha Akter mourned her husband, one of those who died in the explosion at SN Corporation's yard in September. A safety supervisor, his lungs were burned in the blast.
Without his salary, she fears that she and their two young children are "condemned to live in poverty. It's our fate," said the young widow.
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Malay Mail
a day ago
- Malay Mail
Toxic toll of shipbreaking: New rules may not change dirty and deadly ship recycling business
CHITTAGONG (Bangladesh), June 19 — Mizan Hossain fell 10 metres from the top of a ship he was cutting up on Chittagong beach in Bangladesh — where the majority of the world's maritime giants meet their end — when the vibrations shook him from the upper deck. He survived, but his back was crushed. 'I can't get up in the morning,' said the 31-year-old who has a wife, three children and his parents to support. 'We eat one meal in two, and I see no way out of my situation,' said Hossain, his hands swollen below a deep scar on his right arm. The shipbreaking site where Hossain worked without a harness did not comply with international safety and environmental standards. Hossain has been cutting up ships on the sand without proper protection or insurance since he was a child, like many men in his village a few kilometres inland from the giant beached ships. One of his neighbours had his toes crushed in another yard shortly before AFP visited Chittagong in February. Shipbreaking yards employ 20,000 to 30,000 people directly or indirectly in the sprawling port on the Bay of Bengal. But the human and environmental cost of the industry is also immense, experts say. The Hong Kong Convention on the Recycling of Ships, which is meant to regulate one of the world's most dangerous industries, is set to come into effect on June 26. But many question whether its rules on handling toxic waste and protecting workers are sufficient or if they will ever be properly implemented. Only seven out of Chittagong's 30 yards meet the new rules about equipping workers with helmets, harnesses and other protection as well as protocols for decontaminating ships of asbestos and other pollutants and storing hazardous waste. This photograph taken on February 19, 2025 shows Mizan Hossain, a former employee at a shipbreaking yard who sustained injuries in an accident, posing with his son for photos at his residence on the outskirts of Bangladesh's southern port city of Chittagong. — AFP pic No official death tolls Chittagong was the final destination of nearly a third of the 409 ships dismantled globally last year, according to the NGO coalition Shipbreaking Platform. Most of the others ended up in India, Pakistan, or Turkiye. But Bangladesh — close to the Asian nerve centre of global maritime commerce — offers the best price for buying end-of-life ships due to its extremely low labour costs, with a minimum monthly wage of around US$133 (RM566). Chittagong's 25-kilometre stretch of beach is the world's biggest ship graveyard. Giant hulks of oil tankers or gas carriers lie in the mud under the scorching sun, an army of workers slowly dismembering them with oxyacetylene torches. 'When I started (in the 2000s) it was extremely dangerous,' said Mohammad Ali, a thickset union leader who long worked without protection dismantling ships on the sand. 'Accidents were frequent, and there were regular deaths and injuries.' He was left incapacitated for months after being hit on the head by a piece of metal. 'When there's an accident, you're either dead or disabled,' the 48-year-old said. At least 470 workers have been killed and 512 seriously injured in the shipbreaking yards of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan since 2009, according to the Shipbreaking Platform NGO. No official death toll is kept in Chittagong. But between 10 and 22 workers a year died in its yards between 2018 and 2022, according to a count kept by Mohamed Ali Sahin, founder of a workers' support centre. There have been improvements in recent years, he said, especially after Dhaka ratified the Hong Kong Convention in 2023, Sahin said. But seven workers still died last year and major progress is needed, he said. The industry is further accused of causing major environmental damage, particularly to mangroves, with oil and heavy metals escaping into the sea from the beach. Asbestos — which is not illegal in Bangladesh — is also dumped in open-air landfills. Shipbreaking is also to blame for abnormally high levels of arsenic and other metalloids in the region's soil, rice and vegetables, according to a 2024 study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. This photograph taken on February 18, 2025 shows workers cutting down metal parts at a shipbreaking yard of the PHP Ship Breaking and Recycling facility in Bangladesh's southern port city of Chittagong. — AFP pic 'Responsibility should be shared' PHP, the most modern yard in the region, is one of few in Chittagong that meets the new standards. Criticism of pollution and working conditions in Bangladesh yards annoys its managing director Mohammed Zahirul Islam. 'Just because we're South Asian, with dark skin, are we not capable of excelling in a field?' he told AFP. 'Ships are built in developed countries... then used by Europeans and Westerners for 20 or 30 years, and we get them (at the end) for four months. 'But everything is our fault,' he said as workers in helmets, their faces shielded by plastic visors to protect them from metal shards, dismantled a Japanese gas carrier on a concrete platform near the shore. 'There should be a shared responsibility for everyone involved in this whole cycle,' he added. His yard has modern cranes and even flower beds, but workers are not masked as they are in Europe to protect them from inhaling metal dust and fumes. But modernising yards to meet the new standards is costly, with PHP spending US$10 million to up its game. With the sector in crisis, with half as many ships sent for scrap since the pandemic — and Bangladesh hit by instability after the tumultuous ousting of premier Sheikh Hasina in August — investors are reluctant, said John Alonso of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Chittagong still has no facility to treat or store hazardous materials taken from ships. PHP encases the asbestos it extracts in cement and stores it on-site in a dedicated room. 'I think we have about six to seven years of storage capacity,' said its expert Liton Mamudzer. But NGOs like Shipbreaking Platform and Robin des Bois are sceptical about how feasible this is, with some ships containing scores of tonnes of asbestos. And Walton Pantland, of the global union federation IndustriALL, questioned whether the Hong Kong standards will be maintained once yards get their certification, with inspections left to local officials. Indeed, six workers were killed in September in an explosion at SN Corporation's Chittagong yard, which was compliant with the convention. Shipbreaking Platform said it was symptomatic of a lack of adequate 'regulation, supervision and worker protections' in Bangladesh, even with the Hong Kong rules. This aerial photograph taken on February 18, 2025 shows a general view of a shipbreaking yard at the PHP Ship Breaking and Recycling facility in Bangladesh's southern port city of Chittagong. — AFP pic 'Toxic' Trojan horse The NGO's director Ingvild Jenssen said shipowners were using the Hong Kong Convention to bypass the Basel Convention, which bans OECD countries from exporting toxic waste to developing nations. She accused them of using it to offload toxic ships cheaply at South Asian yards without fear of prosecution, using a flag of convenience or intermediaries. In contrast, European shipowners are required to dismantle ships based on the continent, or flying a European flag, under the much stricter Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR). At the Belgian shipbreaking yard Galloo near the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, demolition chief Peter Wyntin told AFP how ships are broken down into '50 different kinds of materials' to be recycled. Everything is mechanised, with only five or six workers wearing helmets, visors and masks to filter the air, doing the actual breaking amid mountains of scrap metal. A wind turbine supplies electricity, and a net collects anything that falls in the canal. Galloo also sank 10 million euros into water treatment, using activated carbon and bacterial filters. But Wyntin said it is a struggle to survive with several European yards forced to shut as Turkish ones with EU certification take much of the business. While shipbreakers in the EU have '25,000 pages of legislation to comply with', he argued, those in Aliaga on the western coast of Turkiye have only 25 pages of rules to respect to be 'third-country compliant under SRR'. Wyntin is deeply worried the Hong Kong Convention will further undermine standards and European yards with them. 'You can certify yards in Turkiye or Asia, but it still involves beaching,' where ships are dismantled directly on the shore. 'And beaching is a process we would never accept in Europe,' he insisted. Illegal dumps Turkish health and safety officials reported eight deaths since 2020 at shipbreaking yards in Aliaga, near Izmir, which specialises in dismantling cruise ships. 'If we have a fatality, work inspectors arrive immediately and we risk being shut down,' Wyntin told AFP. In April, Galloo lost a bid to recycle a 13,000-tonne Italian ferry, with 400 tonnes of asbestos, to a Turkish yard, Wyntin said. Yet in May, the local council in Aliaga said 'hazardous waste was stored in an environmentally harmful manner, sometimes just covered with soil.' 'It's estimated that 15,000 tons of hazardous waste are scattered in the region, endangering human and environmental health due to illegal storage methods,' it said on X, posting photos of illegal dumps. In Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch and the Shipbreaking Platform have reported that 'toxic materials from ships, including asbestos' are sometimes 'resold on the second-hand market'. In Chittagong, everything gets recycled. On the road along the beach, shops overflow with furniture, toilets, generators and staircases taken straight from the hulks pulled up on the beach a few metres away. Not far away, Rekha Akter mourned her husband, one of those who died in the explosion at SN Corporation's yard in September. A safety supervisor, his lungs were burned in the blast. Without his salary, she fears that she and their two young children are 'condemned to live in poverty. It's our fate,' said the young widow. — AFP
The Star
a day ago
- The Star
Air India says plane 'well-maintained' before crash
NEW DELHI: Air India's Boeing plane was "well-maintained" before it crashed a week ago, killing all but one of 242 people on board, the airline said Thursday (June 19). Indian authorities are yet to detail what caused the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner to hurtle to the ground in the western city of Ahmedabad, where at least 38 people were also left dead. As investigators attempt to retrieve data from the plane's black boxes -- the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder -- the airline said that no problems were detected with the jet before the disaster. "The plane was well-maintained, with its last major check in June 2023," Air India said in a statement. "Its right engine was overhauled in March 2025, and the left engine was inspected in April 2025. Both the aircraft and engines were regularly monitored, showing no issues before the flight," the airline said. The London-bound jet burst into a fireball when it smashed into a residential area of Ahmedabad moments after takeoff. Initial checks since the crash on Air India's Dreamliners "did not reveal any major safety concerns", the country's civil aviation regulator said Tuesday. India's aviation investigative unit said Thursday the probe was "progressing steadily". "Key recovery work, including site documentation and evidence collection, has been completed, and further analysis is now underway," the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said in a statement. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members. The airline said Thursday the pilots were accomplished flyers. "The flight was led by Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a highly experienced pilot and trainer with over 10,000 hours flying widebody aircraft," it said. "First Officer Clive Kunder, had over 3,400 hours of flying experience." While investigators try to piece together what went wrong, families of dozens of victims are still waiting for their loved ones to be identified. As of Thursday, 210 victims have been identified through DNA testing, state health minister Rushikesh Patel said. - AFP
New Straits Times
3 days ago
- New Straits Times
New rules may not change dirty and deadly ship recycling business
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh: Mizan Hossain fell 10 metres (33 feet) from the top of a ship he was cutting up on Chittagong beach in Bangladesh—where the majority of the world's maritime giants meet their end—when the vibrations shook him from the upper deck. He survived, but his back was crushed. "I can't get up in the morning," said the 31-year-old, who has a wife, three children and his parents to support. "We eat one meal in two, and I see no way out of my situation," said Hossain, his hands swollen beneath a deep scar on his right arm. The shipbreaking site where Hossain worked—without a harness—did not comply with international safety and environmental standards. Hossain has been cutting up ships on the sand without proper protection or insurance since he was a child, like many men in his village a few kilometres inland from the giant beached ships. One of his neighbours had his toes crushed in another yard shortly before AFP visited Chittagong in February. Shipbreaking yards employ between 20,000 and 30,000 people directly or indirectly in the sprawling port on the Bay of Bengal. But experts say the human and environmental cost of the industry is also immense. The Hong Kong Convention on the Recycling of Ships, which is meant to regulate one of the world's most dangerous industries, is set to come into effect on June 26. But many question whether its rules on handling toxic waste and protecting workers are sufficient—or whether they will ever be properly implemented. Only seven out of Chittagong's 30 yards meet the new rules about equipping workers with helmets, harnesses and other protection, as well as protocols for decontaminating ships of asbestos and other pollutants, and storing hazardous waste. Chittagong was the final destination of nearly a third of the 409 ships dismantled globally last year, according to the NGO coalition Shipbreaking Platform. Most of the others ended up in India, Pakistan, or Turkey. But Bangladesh—close to the Asian nerve centre of global maritime commerce—offers the best price for buying end-of-life ships due to its extremely low labour costs, with a minimum monthly wage of around $133 (115 euros). Chittagong's 25-kilometre stretch of beach is the world's biggest ship graveyard. Giant hulks of oil tankers or gas carriers lie in the mud under the scorching sun, an army of workers slowly dismembering them with oxyacetylene torches. "When I started (in the 2000s) it was extremely dangerous," said Mohammad Ali, a thickset union leader who long worked without protection dismantling ships on the sand. "Accidents were frequent, and there were regular deaths and injuries." He was left incapacitated for months after being hit on the head by a piece of metal. "When there's an accident, you're either dead or disabled," the 48-year-old said. At least 470 workers have been killed and 512 seriously injured in the shipbreaking yards of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan since 2009, according to Shipbreaking Platform. No official death toll is kept in Chittagong, but between 10 and 22 workers a year died in its yards between 2018 and 2022, according to a count kept by Mohamed Ali Sahin, founder of a workers' support centre. There have been improvements in recent years, especially after Dhaka ratified the Hong Kong Convention in 2023, Sahin said. But seven workers still died last year, and major progress is needed, he added. The industry is further accused of causing major environmental damage, particularly to mangroves, with oil and heavy metals escaping into the sea from the beach. Asbestos—which is not illegal in Bangladesh—is also dumped in open-air landfills. Shipbreaking is also blamed for abnormally high levels of arsenic and other metalloids in the region's soil, rice and vegetables, according to a 2024 study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. PHP, the most modern yard in the region, is one of the few in Chittagong that meets the new standards. Criticism of pollution and working conditions in Bangladeshi yards annoys its managing director, Mohammed Zahirul Islam. "Just because we're South Asian, with dark skin, are we not capable of excelling in a field?" he told AFP. "Ships are built in developed countries... then used by Europeans and Westerners for 20 or 30 years, and we get them (at the end) for four months. "But everything is our fault," he said, as workers in helmets, their faces shielded by plastic visors to protect them from metal shards, dismantled a Japanese gas carrier on a concrete platform near the shore. "There should be a shared responsibility for everyone involved in this whole cycle," he added. His yard has modern cranes and even flower beds, but workers are not masked as they are in Europe to protect them from inhaling metal dust and fumes. However, modernising yards to meet the new standards is costly, with PHP spending $10 million to upgrade its operations. With the sector in crisis—only half as many ships have been sent for scrap since the pandemic—and Bangladesh hit by instability after the tumultuous ousting of premier Sheikh Hasina in August, investors are reluctant, said John Alonso of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Chittagong still has no facility to treat or store hazardous materials taken from ships. PHP encases the asbestos it extracts in cement and stores it on-site in a dedicated room. "I think we have about six to seven years of storage capacity," said its expert, Liton Mamudzer. But NGOs like Shipbreaking Platform and Robin des Bois are sceptical about how feasible this is, with some ships containing scores of tonnes of asbestos. Walton Pantland, of the global union federation IndustriALL, questioned whether the Hong Kong standards will be maintained once yards get their certification, with inspections left to local officials. Indeed, six workers were killed in September in an explosion at SN Corporation's Chittagong yard, which was compliant with the convention. Shipbreaking Platform said it was symptomatic of a lack of adequate "regulation, supervision and worker protections" in Bangladesh, even with the Hong Kong rules. The NGO's director, Ingvild Jenssen, said shipowners were using the Hong Kong Convention to bypass the Basel Convention, which bans OECD countries from exporting toxic waste to developing nations. She accused them of using it to offload toxic ships cheaply at South Asian yards without fear of prosecution, using a flag of convenience or intermediaries. In contrast, European shipowners are required to dismantle ships based on the continent—or flying a European flag—under the much stricter Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR). At the Belgian shipbreaking yard Galloo, near the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, demolition chief Peter Wyntin told AFP how ships are broken down into "50 different kinds of materials" to be recycled. Everything is mechanised, with only five or six workers—wearing helmets, visors and masks to filter the air—doing the actual breaking amid mountains of scrap metal. A wind turbine supplies electricity, and a net collects anything that falls in the canal. Galloo also invested 10 million euros in water treatment, using activated carbon and bacterial filters. But Wyntin said it is a struggle to survive, with several European yards forced to shut as Turkish ones with EU certification take much of the business. While shipbreakers in the EU have "25,000 pages of legislation to comply with," he argued, those in Aliaga on the western coast of Turkey have only 25 pages of rules to respect to be "third-country compliant under SRR." Wyntin is deeply worried the Hong Kong Convention will further undermine standards—and European yards with them. "You can certify yards in Turkey or Asia, but it still involves beaching," where ships are dismantled directly on the shore. "And beaching is a process we would never accept in Europe," he insisted. Turkish health and safety officials reported eight deaths since 2020 at shipbreaking yards in Aliaga, near Izmir, which specialises in dismantling cruise ships. "If we have a fatality, work inspectors arrive immediately and we risk being shut down," Wyntin told AFP. In April, Galloo lost a bid to recycle a 13,000-tonne Italian ferry—with 400 tonnes of asbestos—to a Turkish yard, Wyntin said. Yet in May, the local council in Aliaga said "hazardous waste was stored in an environmentally harmful manner, sometimes just covered with soil." "It's estimated that 15,000 tonnes of hazardous waste are scattered in the region, endangering human and environmental health due to illegal storage methods," it said on X, posting photos of illegal dumps. In Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch and Shipbreaking Platform have reported that "toxic materials from ships, including asbestos," are sometimes "resold on the second-hand market." In Chittagong, everything gets recycled. On the road along the beach, shops overflow with furniture, toilets, generators and staircases taken straight from the hulks pulled up on the beach a few metres away. Not far away, Rekha Akter mourned her husband, one of those who died in the explosion at SN Corporation's yard in September. A safety supervisor, his lungs were burned in the blast. Without his salary, she fears that she and their two young children are "condemned to live in poverty. It's our fate," said the young widow.
