In terms of statistics, it has been seen that almost 2 to 3 billion metric tons of waste is produced around the world. Also, the number is expected to double up by the next 20 years. Only 65% of the total waste produced is managed properly and this clears the fact that our future is still grim. One of the things that contributes to this never ending issue is the ship recycling. A ship produces good amount of the waste during its lifetime and it also produces good amount of waste when it reaches its end of life. This is the reason why green ship recycling approach came into existence. This helps in benefiting the environment instead of letting it go to waste.
What Is Green Ship Recycling?
Green ship recycling is considered as a responsible method of dismantling or decommissioning the old ships or vessels so that no negative impact is embedded on the human lives and the environment. The amount of waste generated during that procedure also gets reduced. One of the main objectives of green ship recycling is that it gives maximum output of each and every ship or vessel. This also gives advantage to the ship owner as he can get money from selling the usable parts and equipment instead of just dismantling all of the ship’s metal.
Removal of Harmful Materials
The ships or vessels contains a number of hazardous materials that can prove to be harmful to the humans, animals and plants. The harmful material materials includes:
· Asbestos
· Oil
· Gasoline
· Mercury
· Lead based paint
Each of the above mentioned harmful material need to be safely removed from the vessel before it is disposed off in the environment. Particularly, oil and gasoline can impose a threat to the marine creatures if these are allowed to get into the beaches or water. Most of the times, inexperienced or irresponsible workers work at the ship breaking yards which results in improper disposing of the substances. Now days, lead-based paint and asbestos are no longer used during the ship construction because of the fact that it affects the human and animal health in the negative manner.
Removal of Useful Parts
After a cargo ship serves its tenure life, it may not be able to transport goods from one place to another. But it doesn’t mean that ship becomes completely useless. Instead, there are some of the mechanical parts in the ship that are in good working condition and can be reused. Through the green ship recycling approach, each and every part of the ship is evaluated and can be reused instead of being turned into scrap metal. In addition to this, you can even get a higher price for the working part if you sell off in the second hand market. Whenever these parts are sold off for the use in other ships, this reduces the environmental impact of the ship recycling / shipbreaking and thus benefitting in some way or the other. They can even melt down a part into scrap and then the production of a new part begins.
