Abstract
A material flow analysis (MFA) study was conducted on all materials (including ferrous and non-ferrous), parts, equipment and consumables extracted from the ship breaking industry in Chittagong, Bangladesh. In fiscal year 2010, a total of 100 large vessels (1.35 million LDT) were dismantled. From this, 1.17 million tons of steel and ferrous materials along with 0.1 million tons of machines, equipment, hardware and fittings were collected. Out of this, about 89 % is being reused or recycled, while reuse by basic segregation, processing and repair accounts for about 22 %. Above all, “Ship to Ship” reuse by the shipbuilding and shipping industries accounts for about 8 %. Although a field survey observed insufficient control of hazardous materials, the situation has been slightly improved due to the expected enforcement of the ship recycling treaty in the future. In addition, the paper examines characteristics of ship breaking in developed and developing countries using a comparative study with a ship breaking pilot project in Muroran, Japan in 2010.
