Abstract Top
Plenary Session 2
Friday 19, November, 2004
13:30 - 16:00, International Conference Hall
Plenary Session 2
Environmental Exposure, Crisis Preparedness and Risk Communication
Chairs: Mari Christine and Oshima Sumiko
Asbestos in Ship-Breaking Business in Bangladesh
Aminur Rashid Chowdhury-Repon
Bangladesh Occupational Health, Safety and Environment Foundation, Bangladesh
ABSTRACT:

Bangladesh is one of the countries in Asia actively involved in commercial ship breaking for more than two-decades. The ship graveyard at Shitakundha, Chittagong is a only 'iron mine' of the land. Bangladesh purchase on average 180-250 old ships a year for scrapping. At present, the number of active ship breaking yards is 30 and around 30,000 workers directly and around 50,000 indirectly employed there.
Key reasons for establishment of the ship breaking industry at Shitakunda area are: natural bathing and beaching facility, little financial investment on human resource and machinery for operating the business, high demand of low cost raw materials for re-rolling mills, cheap labour, low enforcement of legislation related to the business, isolated from conscious public eye and weak monitoring infrastructure of government agencies. In reality, the ship scrapping yards at Shitakuda operate by self-made rules of yard/company owners.
The work in the ship breaking yards is mostly labour intensive and 100% contract based. No formal worker - management relationship and no job security and social safety-net schemes for them. 98% of the labour in scrapping yards are illiterate, no former training and 100% are unorganised. Occupational accidents, injury and deaths are very frequent and normal events there.
No available data or reports on workers health in ship breaking industries in the region, more specifically in Bangladesh. This indicate that there are no nor never have been any systematic monitoring structure of health among workers in ship scrapping yards in our region.
Workers receive potential negative health impacts from adopted traditional working procedures in the scrapping yards such as:
  • torch cutting without protection (eye and skin injuries)
  • heavy lifting (wear and tear, back injuries)
  • noise (hearing defects) and from the exposure of hazardous substances such as:
  • asbestos
  • chemicals (PCB, PCV, PAH, Tin-organic compounds oils)
  • heavy metals
  • fumes (dust, fume/gas components; dioxins, isocyanates, sulpher etc) Asbestos-containing materials (ACM) may be found in the in the thermal system insulation and on surfacing materials. When ACM deteriorates or disturbed, asbestos breaks up into very fine fibers that can be suspended in the air for long period and possibly inhaled by workers and operators at the facility or people living near by the scrapping yards. The most dangerous asbestos fibers are too small to be visible. Once they are inhaled, the fibers can remain and accumulate in the lung. Breathing high levels of asbestos fibers can lead to an increased risk of lung cancer, mesothelioma (a cancer of the chest and abdominal linings), and asbestosis (irreversible lung scarring that can be fatal). The risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma increases with level of exposure. Symptoms of these diseases do not show up until many years after exposure. Most people with asbestos-related diseases have been exposed to elevated concentrations in connection with their work.
    Asbestos removed from a ship is still not necessarily regulated as hazardous waste in Bangladesh and elsewhere. In fact, in Bangladesh and some other countries asbestos is recovered by manual crushing and then re-casted for re-use. The potential health impacts associated with the use of asbestos are of such a severe nature that compulsory minimum precautions are necessary. This includes workers education/capacity building training and awareness in the ship breaking yards on negative effects of asbestos, protection of workers when extracting asbestos from vassals, ban re-use of asbestos, the securing of the disposal of asbestos and measures preventing asbestos from re-entering the market from scrap yards.
    More over building a strong action oriented national and international campaign network or coalition in Asia in this regard is essential.
    		•