Shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh: Legal, health, safety, & technical issues

Author: Bishnu Dev Roy, Habibur Rahman Mojumder, Mohammad Minhazul Haque Sakin, Md. Mostafa Aziz Shaheen
DOI: doi.org/10.70279/bmj-v6-i1-1063
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Ship breaking is one of the indigenous industries in the world. A ship is dismantled in a yard after her lifespan. Dismantling ship generates huge revenue, support backward industry and creates employment opportunities for a country. Many developed countries were pioneers in this industry. However, this industry moved to Asian countries due to cheap labor and substandard regulations. Being a maritime nation, Bangladesh holds an elevated position in the ship breaking industry consistently. Though having potentiality, Bangladesh reflects a shady image due to disregarded environmental pollution, health and safety issues. Therefore, this study effort to examine the issue concerning ship breaking, identify challenges, and put forward strategies for their mitigation to get the optimum output in the ship breaking industry. The study depended on data compiled from secondary sources. Secondary data were sourced from published books, documents, reports, scholarly articles, and the internet. This study exhibited the existing ship breaking practices relying on the conventional beaching method resulting in environmental pollution, occupational health, and safety hazards. Moreover, the underlying causes are deficiency in legal compliance, less concern in human resources, insufficient technical facilities. Therefore, this study recommends obligatory legal compliance, human resource development, and technical standardization requiring the utmost priority for sustainable development and keeping up the continuous growth of this industry.