Uncovering Discursive Framings of the Bangladesh Shipbreaking Industry

Environmental hazards and health rights of workers in shipbreaking in Bangladesh

Purpose

The shipbreaking sector in Bangladesh has spurred extensive academic and policy debates on relations between shipbreaking industries, environmental degradation and the health security of their workers. As shipbreaking is an economically significant industry in Bangladesh, it needs to implement both domestic and global mechanisms for environmental conservation and the protection of the labourers’ health from environmental risks. The purpose of this paper is to primarily explore the environmental and health security issues in shipbreaking activities in Bangladesh. It also identifies the challenges in implementing the rules and regulations for protecting the health of the workers at shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh and preserving the marine environment.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a qualitative paper based on secondary materials, including journal articles, books and national and international reports. It critically reviews the existing literature, rules, regulations and policing on shipbreaking with a particular focus on the environment and health security of the workers.

Findings

This paper finds that the implementation of the rules and regulations in shipbreaking in Bangladesh is complicated because of weak implementation mechanisms, political and economic interests of the yard owners, lack of coordination among different agencies, lack of adequate training and awareness among the workers and workers’ poor economic condition, which contribute to the degradation of marine and local environments and trigger health hazards among the workers. Therefore, degrading the environment and undermining occupational health and safety regulations have become regular; thus, accidental death and injury to the workers are common in this sector.

Originality/value

This paper is an important study on the issues of workers' health and safety and environmental hazards in the shipyard. It reports how the health security of the workers in shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh is vulnerable, and environmental rules are challenged. Finally, this paper frames some policy implications to safeguard the workers’ health rights and the marine environment.

Assessing Energy-Based CO2 Emission and Workers’ Health Risks at the Shipbreaking Industries in Bangladesh

The study represents the estimation of energy-based CO2 emission and the health risks of workers involved in the shipbreaking industries in Sitakunda, Bangladesh. To calculate the carbon emission (CE) from three shipbreaking activities, i.e., metal gas cutting (GC), diesel fuel (FU) and electricity consumption (EC), we used the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Emission and Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) emission factors. Moreover, the geographic weighted regression (GWR) model was applied to assess the contribution of influencing factors of CE throughout the sampling points. To assess the workers’ health condition and their perceptions on environmental degradation, a semi-structured questionnaire survey among 118 respondents were performed. The results showed that total CO2 emissions from GC were 0.12 megatons (MT), 11.43 MT, and 41.39 MT for daily, monthly, and yearly respectively, and the values were significantly higher than the surrounding control area. Emissions from the FU were estimated as daily: 0.85 MT, monthly: 1.92 MT, and yearly: 17.91 MT, which were significantly higher than EC. The study also revealed that workers were very susceptible to accidental hazards especially death (91%), and pollution (79%). Environmental consequences and health risks of the workers in shipbreaking industry warrant more attention nationally and internationally at the industry-level.

Value Retention Options in Circular Economy: Issues and Challenges of LED Lamp Preprocessing

The Circular Economy is gaining recognition for its attention to increasing material circularity by proposing a set of value retention options, and organizing business, institutions, and policies for their implementation. Light emitting diode (LED) lamp recycling is becoming increasingly important due to their growing market share and precious metal content. Instead of the current shredding approach, this study applied higher value retention options, such as testing for the functionality of the bulb at the product level, manual disassembly to reuse parts at the component level, and automatic disassembly for industrial scale reuse. This study finds that the effort that is needed to implement higher value retention options (such as reuse) requires a new form of secondary business, wider networks of recycling chains, and favorable policies. It also shows that about 50% of the lamp waste stream is still functioning and economically attractive if they are remarketed. However, the demand-pull market conditions seem to be missing. For manual disassembly, the output fractions are cleaner, but it is not economically feasible due to high labor cost. On the other hand, automatic disassembly does not produce cleaner fractions due to wide design variability. Thus, this study suggests that shifting from shredding-focused-resource recovery to reuse-based-resource circularity requires a comprehensive framework that simultaneously encourages secondary market formation, collaboration between manufacturers, recyclers and companies, and the formulation of favorable reuse policies. This study applies insights from circular economy principles to LED lamp recycling, and it also contributes to the latter by identifying challenges and possible solutions.