Send your garbage

In a recently published story, a US newspaper, The Baltimore Sun , said that the US may be looking towards South Asian countries -- India, Pakistan and Bangladesh -- to export its obsolete ships laden with asbestos, PCBs, lead, toxic wastes and other hazardous substances. Earlier, US shipping companies and the Navy had been sending their ships to yards in the US itself for scrapping. But workers and environmental groups started suing the ship yards as they were not meeting environmental norms.

US shipbreaking yards lobbied for the government to relax the laws and allow them to send ships to other countries for scrapping. Now, many international companies bypass the regulations in India by reselling the scrapped ships to eager buyers from developing countries. They mint money out of the deal as labour is cheap in developing countries and environmental standards are lax. According to The Baltimore Sun , USS Bennington , a naval ship of the World War II era, was bought by a company called Resource International in 1994 for US $200,000 and resold to an Indian shipbreaking firm at a higher price. US law required Resource International to chalk out a technical plan of breaking to ensure workers' safety. But it was meaningless. At Alang, shipbreakers maintain that they have no contact with the US government or Resource International, the paper reports.

Recently, a question was raised in the Indian Parliament that Alang shipbreaking yard had accepted two US ships that carried hazardous wastes. The port officer at Alang had termed the allegations as baseless. However, if customs officials are to be believed, the yard may be receiving such ships.