shipbreaking two days in alang - environmental xprt · mixture of betel leaf and areca nut), and...

Recycling International • October 2005 42

By Tom Mele

S H I P B R E A K I N G

Two days inAlangTake a US scrap recycler, put him on the

shipbreaking beach in Alang, India, and the

experience is sure to be as moving, enlight-

ening and perplexing as the place itself.

A fleet of ships is run aground along the shore-line, looking like a pod of beached steel whales.

From the pilot house of a 60 000-tonne oil tanker, Ihave an excellent view of this six-mile stretch ofsand that is unquestionably the world’s largestscrap yard. This is Alang in north-western India,and it is here where thousands of obsolete shipshave been brought over the years for recycling.

The Alang shipbreaking yards are located off theArabian Sea on the west coast of the Gulf ofCambay. The beach there has some natural fea-tures that make it well-suited for cutting up ships.Twice a month - at the full and new moons - thehigh tide rises 30 feet above normal. Combined witha sandy shelf that extends a quarter mile into thebay, these attributes allow ships to be run aground,leaving them high and dry when the tide ebbs.

Once beached, each vessel is recycled by one ofthe 72 shipbreaking businesses that operate side byside along the beach. These enterprises, whichemploy an estimated 15 000 workers, form a verita-ble city dedicated to scrapping ships. It is quite asight - and to this scrap veteran, it was my idea of adream vacation.

Getting there

Alang - located about an hour’s drive south eastfrom the city of Bhavnagar in the state of Gujarat -is not an easy place to reach. After travelling 30hours from New York, I grabbed a few hours ofsleep in Mumbai and then went to the airport at 5am for the flight to Bhavnagar. Leaving Mumbaiairport, the plane cut through the smog and arcedover the Arabian Sea, heading north west for asmooth one-hour flight.

Descending toward our destination, we bankedover shallow, muddy salt flats before landing at thescrubby Bhavnagar airport. Upon deplaning into100 degree heat, I immediately searched for mysunglasses and bought a bottle of water. Ignoringthe indecipherable Gujarati signs and tuggingtouts, I went out to find a taxi.

Since I was the sole cab fare on this Sundaymorning, a fight broke out between two taxi driversto see who would drive me into town. I chose theone with the lowest fare - only 10 times the goingrate - which prompted the loser to whack our vehi-cle with a tyre iron as we pulled away.

My destination was the Nilambag Palace Hotel -the main hotel in Bhavnagar - which is just that,an old Maharajah’s palace. This regal domicile wasbuilt in the 1850s by English architect Sir WilliamEmmerson and has not been repaired since. Dusty,stuffed tigers and royal portraits remain in the foy-

er as reminders of the former royal occupants. Thecurrent Maharajah Singh lives on the grounds andappears more like a suburban soccer dad than amember of faded royalty. All in all, the place hadsome character, even if people kept walking into myroom at odd hours.

Not for the faint-hearted

Although the shipbreaking operations were closedon Sunday, it was still early and so I decided to gohave a look at the place. For half the cost of my 10-minute ride from the airport, I found a driver to makethe one-hour trip to the coast. It was not a drive forthe faint of heart. The tarmac road had two narrowlanes with no shoulders and a sandy drop-off on eachside. The roadway was shared by pedestrians, dogs,motor scooters, tuk-tuks (motorised rickshaws), bul-lock carts, cars, buses, overloaded trucks, and theubiquitous Brahma cows. The experience was likebeing inside some kind of real-world video drivinggame. Within that mix is an inviolable pecking orderof size and speed that dictates who overtakes whomon the next blind corner. When you add in the heat,dust, diesel exhaust, incessant honking, and unfamil-iar (to me) left-side driving, I found it best to ride withmy head in the glove compartment.

The first indication that we were approachingAlang was a gigantic diesel engine, looking a bit outof place in the middle of a cornfield. Soon, othermarine artifacts appeared along the roadside, includ-ing a dozen orange lifeboats, mountains of fluores-cent life vests, and stacks of cabin doors. For the nexttwo miles, the road was lined on both sides with largeyards specialising in materials and objects found onlarge ships - sinks, kitchen equipment, china, cur-tains, glass, wood, mattresses, engines, generators,cleaning supplies, hydraulic oil and paint.

As we approached the beach, I spotted the top of afreighter on the horizon. Unfortunately, the mainroad was blocked by a guard house. The guardinformed us that entry was restricted. He told me toreturn on Monday when I could apply for permis-sion to enter thebeach area. Theguard then


While working conditions at Alang certainly fallshort of Western standards, it is not the indus-trial nightmare portrayed in many articles andphotos. Workers wear heavy shoes and thetorch-cutters have eye protection and mostwear bandanas across their faces to shieldthemselves from fumes.

In 2004, 226 ships with a combined light-weight tonnage of more than one milliontonnes were scrapped in India.


handed me a document that outlined in English thefees and permissions needed for ‘tourists’ to visit theshipbreaking yards. These included a US$ 25 admis-sion fee and a US$ 100-a-day licence for a videocamera. All levies were payable in US funds to theharbourmaster, who still reserved the right ofrefusal. An offer to pay the admission fee directly tothe guard, in cash, did not produce the desiredresult. Resigned to come back in the morning - whenI did, in fact, have a proper invitation - I decided tospend the afternoon exploring the nearby market.

Exploring the market

In addition to the maritime items on offer, themarket had a sizeable food bazaar on Sunday, whenthe workers have their day off. Approximately 15000 men work in Alang, with the majority living inthe workers’ colony that surrounds the beach. As Iwalked around in the scorching sun, I attracted asizeable crowd. Everyone was curious to knowwhere I was from and what was I doing in Alang.Despite the humble surroundings, there was nolack of hospitality. People offered me numerouscups of tea, soft drinks, pan (a mouth-reddeningmixture of betel leaf and areca nut), and stronglocal cigarettes called ‘bidis’. Since I was a bit of acuriosity, I answered far more questions than Iasked, yet I still managed to discern some informa-tion about working in Alang.

Many of the workers, I learned, were from theIndian states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra andGujarat. They had all come to Alang for the relativelylucrative jobs, which pay double that of most indus-trial jobs in India and triple the national average ofUS$ 45 a month. Labourers commonly work six daysa week, 10 hours a day, earning 200 to 250 Indianrupees a day (about US$ 4-5), with occasional bonus-es for dismantling a vessel ahead of schedule. Thesix-day working week seemed popular since theworkers are paid by the day and since most are farfrom home, with little else to do but work. Many of

the workers supported sizeable families on theirearnings. When I mentioned the 40-hour workingweek and time-and-a-half overtime pay in the USA,the Alang workers thought those sounded like greatconcepts, and I quickly had many volunteers to workat my firm’s plant in New Jersey.

During my time in the market, I also learned thatwithin the work camp most of the labourers share ashack with other men who speak their languageand who are often from the same home town. In thescrap yards, a form of Hindi has developed as anindustrial Esperanto - a necessity given that Indiahas about 18 recognised national languages anduncounted local dialects.

My driver eventually tracked me down andinsisted that we get on the road before nightfall.Considering the trip down, that seemed prudent.So I called it a day and went back to soak in themaharajah’s swimming pool.

On the beach

My second day at Alang was an entirely differentexperience. My Indian host picked me up in a newKorean sedan, and we rode to the beach in about ahalf-hour. There, we swept past the guard housewith a wave and paused at the 10-foot tall irongates of a large shipbreaking yard.

As the gates opened, I caught my first glimpse ofthe beach and saw a container ship - or, more accu-rately, half a container ship - blocking the horizon.Now a ship in the water is an impressive enoughsight, but a ship out of water is overwhelming. Onlythen do you get to see the ship’s additional 30 to 80feet of height that is usually submerged. As weentered the yard, I got a better view and could seedozens of vessels on both sides of the container ship.I caught a familiar whiff of torch-cut steel and burntpaint. Cable cranes loaded large sections of steelplate into beefy straight trucks. Sparks sprayedfrom torches cutting the boats out on the sand.

According to my host, there were 62 vessels in vari-ous states of disassembly up and down the beach. Ashe explained, the six-mile beach is divided into about150 plots, each measuring about 250 feet wide.Currently, there are 72 independent shipbreakingcompanies - primarily family-owned and -operatedbusinesses - working side by side along this stretch.

Though the Alang operators have their personaland competitive differences, they are all united inthe Gujarat Ship-Breakers Association. This associ-ation is well aware of the negative public perceptionof shipbreaking activities at Alang - mostly based onalleged worker abuses and environmental degrada-tion - and the group has worked hard to counter the



heavy criticism. Owners also usethis forum to address collectiveworker safety and health issues.

Not an industrial nightmare

While working conditions atAlang certainly fall short ofWestern standards, I found thatthey were not the industrial night-mare portrayed in many articlesand photos. The beach - which Iexpected to be flooded with oil andlittered with asbestos - was rela-tively clean. The workers I saw allwore heavy shoes. The torch-cut-ters had eye protection and mostwore bandanas across their facesto shield themselves from fumes.There were plenty of safety signs(though I was a little scepticalsince most were in English).Despite these safeguards, there isno denying that shipbreakingremains a dangerous business,with both owners and workersagreeing that there are about 50

Despite improved working conditions, shipbreaking remains a danger-ous business, with owners and workers agreeing that there are aboutfifty fatalities a year at Alang.

The road skirting Alang’s beach is lines withspecialised yards that handle specific itemsculled from dismantled ships, such as thesinks pictured here.

Ships are usually dissected from bow tostern, being wiched forward as the work pro-gresses.

fatalities a year at Alang.As my surprise and awe over the scale of these

recycling operations wore off, I began to notice theorder within the apparent chaos. Large diesel-dri-ven winches - undoubtedly scavenged from thedecks of ships - stood at opposite corners of the plotand did all the heavy work. The cable from onewinch was amplified by a four-pulley block-and-tackle. The end pulley was attached to an oldUkrainian passenger ship lodged in the sand a fewhundred feet offshore. Because of its deep-keeledbottom, this was as close as the ship could get underits own power. When the next high tide arrived, this10 000-tonne boat would be dragged the last fewhundred feet to the beach. Once a boat is beached, itis usually dissected from the bow to the stern, beingwinched forward as work progresses.

Locally-manufactured cable cranes, positionedsafely back from the tide, hauled pieces of cut steelup the beach from the waterline. While I watched,the hull was being cut into six- by eight-foot sheets,each of which had a hole cut in it so it could be las-soed with a crane and loaded onto a truck. All thecranes appeared to be cable-operated rather thanhydraulic, and there were no lifting magnets in sight.

Competing instead of supplying

Back towards the rear of the yard, recovered met-al was in carefully sorted piles of plate and beam.Non-ferrous scrap was piled under a shed whereworkers cut and sorted copper, brass and stainlessinto distinct piles. Sorted non-ferrous grades arestored in a locked warehouse to prevent theft.Despite their staggering metal content, an averageship yields only 1-2% non-ferrous scrap, includingthe bronze screws (propellers to you landlubbers).The real business here is steel.

At the time of my visit in April 2004, a 10 000-tonne ship cost about 90 million rupees (more thanUS$ 2 million), which translated into US$ 235 toUS$ 250 per light displacement ton (LDT), withprices kept competitive by shipbreaking yards innearby Pakistan and Bangladesh. Given these highper-tonne prices, you can bet that most of Alang’sferrous scrap ends up being re-rolled rather thanmelted - and re-rolling mills are indeed clusteredaround the beach. A few of the more successful ship-breakers, in fact, have vertically integrated into there-rolling business and now feed their own mills.

In these operations, steel plate is cut into manage-able sizes and used as billet to make rebar and flatproducts. Some of the re-rolling operations are largeenough to use the beams and even the anchors asraw material. Thus, instead of supplying scrap to

India’s steel mills, the Alang yards compete withthem for low-end steel products. Large Indian inte-grated mills are politically powerful, however, whichcan create problems for the Alang operators. Also,US Section 201 measures prompted the largerIndian steel producers to turn to the domestic mar-ket and compete for the low-end business. Also, thehigh price of ship scrap and competitive prices forsponge iron have cut into the re-rolled products mar-ket, forcing a number of local operations to close.

View from a ghost ship

Surveying the ships on the beach, I noticed thatthey were from all over the globe. A few more wereanchored out on the horizon, awaiting the next hightide. When the tide arrives, buyers go out to inspecttheir purchases and finalise the deal. After inspec-tion and final agreement on the price, the buyertelephones his bank and releases the funds. Whenthe seller receives confirmation of payment, theboat is given a heading by the harbourmaster. At 5km from shore, the vessel is officially in Indianwaters and title changes hands. Often flying theIndian flag, the ship is then steered at top speed forits assigned patch of beach. The harbourmasterguides the boat in by radio. Once the ship is runaground, its engines are turned off for the last time.Members of the crew wait for the tide to recede,then climb down a rope ladder and walk ashore.This process is repeated some 200 times a year.

During my visit, a 60 000-tonne oil tanker -reportedly the largest boat to be scrapped at Alang -had just arrived and was run right up onto thesand. This vessel, which measured about 1000 feetlong and 80 feet wide, rose at least 10 stories fromsand to deck. Standing next to the hull, I felt like anant next to a water melon.



On average, it takes about twelve months tocut up a huge ship.

Alang’s shipbreaking operations rely as much on machine power as on human labour. Torchcutters are considered skilledworkers who can earn more than the average salary of about US$ 5 a day.

Many of the workers in Alang supported size-able families on their earnings.

My host offered me a tour of the ship, and he did-n’t have to ask twice. After donning gloves, weclimbed up a short ladder and entered through ahole cut in the bow. From there we climbed anotherladder that was lashed to a crossbeam 20 feet aboveus. I remarked that there was no smell of oil andwas told that we were passing through a hold usu-ally filled with water as ballast. Further up, wecrossed a beam and began climbing a series of stepswelded to the inside of the hold. The huge, darkopen space had the size and feel of a steel cathedral.Holes cut in the hull admitted shafts of sunlight aswell as a welcome breeze in the warm enclosure.

After scaling about twenty ladders, we passedthrough a watertight door and emerged, squinting,onto the 800-foot long main deck, which was coveredwith a maze of pipes and valves. At the aft end wasan additional five-storey structure that containedthe bridge and crew’s quarters. As we walkedtoward that structure, I looked off the starboard sideand noticed an old cruise ship down the beach. Muchof its hull had been removed, exposing a few hun-dred state rooms to the noon-day sun. It looked likeone of those cross-section diagrams you see in cruisebrochures. At the back of the cruise ship, a hugediesel engine was being lowered slowly onto a sled soit could be winched up the beach. Beyond that, a pro-peller was being cut down to transportable chunks.

Millions of dollars of ferrous scrap

When we reached the back of our ship, we had toclimb a few more flights of stairs to reach thebridge. It was exactly as the crew had left it. A half-filled cup of coffee sat on the chart table, and theengine telegraph was pulled back to its finalengines-off position. It was eerie, like a ghost shipwith all the charts, flags and logs still in place.

Out on the catwalk, the view was incredible. I couldsee dozens of vessels in both directions - freighters,ferries, tankers, cargo ships, military patrol boats andcruise ships in various states of demolition. Together,

these beached ships represented at least US$ 120 mil-lion in ferrous scrap, I figured.

Our trip back down the many stairs and ladderswas uneventful but a little slower than the climbup. En route, my host estimated that it would take12 months to cut up this huge ship. The purchase ofa vessel, he noted, is usually financed by a short-term note from a bank. The revenue from scrapsales is then paid directly to the bank until the prin-cipal is paid off. The owner usually has to financethe expenses and labour up to that point. The sale ofsalvageable items like lifeboats, non-ferrous met-als, generator sets and accessories helps with cashflow. The bonus of a few thousand gallons of bunkerfuel pumped from the hold of this tanker might cov-er the first month’s expenses.

Curious how one would attack such a massiverecycling project, I asked about the normal ship-breaking sequence. Time, I was told, was the ene-my. The first task would be to strip all the interiorfittings and non-ferrous items so workers couldbegin salvaging the steel. Specialists are usuallybrought in to remove the kitchens, furnishings, win-dows and wood flooring. On a smaller vessel, thiscan sometimes be accomplished in under a week,with time being more important than price. Next,the generators, engines, shafts and propeller areremoved. Then, with the back of the boat substan-tially lighter, it is floated and winched higher upthe beach with the next high tide. The cutting of thesteel varies depending on the type and structure ofthe ship, though it usually starts in the bow, allow-ing workers to cut on dry land within the cranes’reach. As the steel is removed, the boat is winchedin and basically cut up in sections like a giant loaf ofbread. When the last of the keel is processed, anoth-er boat is usually waiting offshore to take its place -and the shipbreaking cycle continues.

Reflecting on misconceptions

As I headed to the airport before dawn the nextmorning, I reflected on my misconceptions aboutIndia’s scrap metal business. I have been to enoughThird World scrap operations to know that workerhealth as well as environmental and safety concernsare entirely at the discretion of the management.Yet in Alang I found sophisticated multi-million dol-lar operations that relied as much on machine poweras human labour. There are just so many contradic-tions and imponderables in this complex culture.

Staring out the taxi window, I saw rows of peoplesleeping on the sidewalk. As we waited for the lightto change, I was enjoying the pre-dawn breezethrough the open cab window when a cell phone

rang. I instinctively reached formy pocket before rememberingthat my phone was back home,12 000 miles away. Then I saw ahomeless man roll over and prophimself up. He reached into hisdhoti, pulled out a chirping cellphone, and flipped it open. He saton his blanket, merrily chattingaway, as the cab lurched forward.Then and there, I realised thatmodern India is neither ThirdWorld nor First, but some crazyhybrid - and I was just too tiredto figure it out.



Tom Mele, the author of thisarticle, is a co-owner of

Connecticut Metal IndustriesInc., Monroe, Connecticut,

USA. He can be contacted at:[email protected]

This article first appeared inthe May/June 2004 issue

of ‘Scrap’ magazine.

Ships are recycled in sections like giantloaves of bread. When the last section isprocessed, another boat is usually waiting off-shore to take its place and the shipbreakingcycle continuous.

Many of the workers are from the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh,Maharashtra and Gujarat. They come to Alang for the relatively lucra-tive jobs, which pay double that of most industrial jobs in India andtriple the national average of US$ 45 a month.

shipbreaking two days in alang - environmental xprt · mixture of betel leaf and areca nut), and...

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