The scrapping of ships is the process by which old or obsolete ships are dismantled which have already finished their useful life and which are scrapped and then their materials sold to industrial nations.
Every year about 1000 boats worldwide and after reaching the end of their working life, they are dismantled to recover their steel and other materials. However, only a fraction of these scrapped vessels meet environmental standards in a sustainable way. More than two-thirds of these boats are simply stranded on the beaches in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Turkey where these ships are dismantled without following the basic environmental conservation standards. In the same way and despite the fact that there are methods in accordance with nature and the well-being of the environment, which ensure that the activity is carried out in an appropriate way. The owners of boats that are sold for this activity are not often willing to comply with the rules and in this way they do not respect the rules and obtain the greatest profits in their sale.
On the beaches of South Asia, hundreds of poor immigrant workers are hired to accomplish the task of scrapping under dangerous conditions and without any security. Among the most sound toxins in this activity we have the removal of asbestos, a recognized carcinogen.
