Ecological Engineering, Industrial Ecology and Eco-Industrial Networking Aspects of Ship Recycling Sector in India

AbstractIndia is the world's leading ship recycling country which works on the principle of waste to wealth. In this paper an attempt has been made to articluate the Ecological Engineering, Industrial Ecology and Eco-Industrial Networking aspects which are embedded in beaching method of ship recycling in Alang, India. There is a need to promote such activities for sustainalbe growth, but, it is equally true that, if ship recycling is conducted haphazardly with very little scientific and technical knowledge, it will expose workers to hazardous conduitions as well as would leave disproportionately large environmental footprint behind. In this context, Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB), Government of Gujarat, India has initiated many projects to defend human and environmental health. In India, already impressive positive changes can be seen as the GMB has set training and welfare institute and its efforts resulted in decrease of fatal accidents from 2.0 per 1000 workers to 0.13 per 1000 workers i.e. 93.5% decrease in the fatal accidents from the year 2003 to 2011 in the ship recycling yards. Present status of ship recycling in India is substantial. The overall trend of the industry is towards following more and more Health Safety & Environment (HSE) norms and has commitments with them. Zero accidents and near zero pollution to the surrounding environment should be the ultimate goal of beaching method of recycling in India to handle pile of end-of-life ships in environmentally sound manner - which are expected to reach ship recycling yards in near future