Ship breaking industry

This is an entirely new industry blossoming around the coasts of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey. Huge ships at the end of their lifecycle are sold for their steel and other recyclable material, and poor workers armed with crowbars and hammers take the ships apart piece by piece. The recycling industry surely has tremendous potential when done in an organized manner, especially when coupled with recylcing cars, trucks, two wheelers, and other home consumer items. Keshav's suggestion on recycling cellphones is even more applicable here, where recyclying companies will actually pay you to take away your broken down car and the break it apart!

The downside is that such recycling tends to release toxic substances into the environment, which can even harm the workers. Somebody needs to fix this, and then somebody needs to come up with better ways of utilizing recycled parts to build other relevant stuff. Once this is done, a whole industry can be supported in this way.

[Jan 02]Protests have been lauched against the dumping of a French ship in Alang, Gujarat, because Indian workers are not completely protected from the hazards of working with the toxic materials.

[Jan 12]GreenPeace activists actually managed to get into the ship off the coast of Egypt to protest against this.

[Jan 12] Egypt has now stopped the ship from crossing into the Suez canal until approproate proofs are not furnished that the Clemenceau is actually free of hazardous material and not in violation of the Basel Convention which prevents trade in hazardous materials.

[Jan 16] Egypt granted passage to the toxic ship, but the Indian supreme court has denied access to the ship into Indian waters until the situation is not verified by the customs.

[Fed 16]France finally recalled the ship, after the Indian Supreme Court refused admission of the ship into Indian waters without additional information. Certainly a big victory for environmental activists. Interesting, even Dhaka banned a Fench liner from entering the Bangadesh ship breaking yards.