Toxic Waters: How Wealthy Nations Dump Cruise Ships and Oil Tankers in Developing Countries
Each year, hundreds of aging cruise ships, oil tankers, and cargo vessels vanish from Western ports, quietly sold off for scrap. But where do they go?
Increasingly, they end up beached on the shores of developing countries like Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, where impoverished workers dismantle them by hand, often barefoot and without protection, under clouds of asbestos dust and fuel fumes. It’s one of the most dangerous and polluting industries in the world — and it’s thriving under the radar of most Western consumers.
The Business of Breaking Ships
The shipbreaking industry is massive. Of the roughly 1,000 large vessels retired globally each year, over 70% are dismantled on just three beaches: Alang in India, Chattogram (formerly Chittagong) in Bangladesh, and Gadani in Pakistan. These are known as “tidal beaching yards,” where ships are driven onto shorelines and torn apart manually.
Why South Asia? The answer is cost. Labor is cheap, safety regulations are weak, and toxic waste disposal is virtually nonexistent. These cost savings allow shipbreaking yards to offer top dollar for end-of-life vessels — often double the price offered by regulated recyclers in Europe or Turkey.
A Deadly Trade
The environmental and human costs of this bargain are staggering.
Ships contain tons of toxic materials: asbestos, heavy metals, PCBs, hydraulic fluids, lead-based paints, and more. In South Asia, these materials are rarely removed in controlled environments. Instead, they leach into the water, soil, and air — poisoning both workers and coastal communities.
Workers, many of them teenagers or young men from rural villages, face daily risks of amputation, falls, chemical exposure, and explosions. Protective equipment is rarely provided. Deaths and dismemberments are common. Local NGOs report hundreds of fatalities and thousands of injuries in the past two decades, most of which go unrecorded by yard owners or authorities.
Despite these conditions, workers stay — because the alternative is often worse. Shipbreaking offers one of the few ways to earn steady income in impoverished coastal regions.
Cruise Ships and Oil Tankers: A Toxic Farewell
Cruise ships, marketed to middle-class tourists as symbols of luxury and escape, often end their lives in these brutal yards. After the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the cruise industry, dozens of once-grand liners were sold off and dismantled in record time.
Oil tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships follow the same route. Once they’re no longer profitable to maintain, owners quietly transfer them to shady middlemen known as “cash buyers,” who reflag the ships to avoid regulations and sell them to South Asian yards for scrap.
These middlemen play a key role in insulating shipping companies from accountability. By reflagging vessels under “flags of convenience” like Comoros, Palau, or St. Kitts & Nevis, they bypass EU and international waste export laws — all while knowing the ships will end up on a polluted beach.
Legal Loopholes and Regulatory Failure
Technically, international laws are supposed to prevent this kind of toxic dumping.
The Basel Convention prohibits the export of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries without prior informed consent. The EU Ship Recycling Regulation mandates that EU-flagged ships be dismantled only at approved facilities. And the Hong Kong Convention (set to come into force in 2025) lays out safety standards for ship recycling.
But shipowners and brokers exploit every loophole. They sell ships just before the end of their operational lives, falsely declare that the vessels are still active, and quickly reflag them under jurisdictions with little oversight. Some companies even create shell corporations to shield themselves from scrutiny.
Once a ship is out of sight, it’s out of mind — and out of reach of most regulators.
The Human Face of Scrapping
Beyond the legal gymnastics and corporate denial lies a devastating human story.
In Chattogram, children as young as 14 have been found hauling scrap metal and cutting through bulkheads with blowtorches. In Alang, India, workers live in squalid dormitories with limited access to clean water, working 12-hour shifts with no formal contracts. In Pakistan’s Gadani yard, an explosion on an oil tanker in 2016 killed at least 28 men — most of whom were never formally identified.
Local residents suffer too. Fishing grounds have been poisoned. Beaches are lined with twisted steel and black sludge. Studies have shown elevated levels of lead, mercury, and arsenic in the soil and water near shipbreaking zones.
For the West, this is out of sight — but for millions of people across South Asia, it’s a daily, deadly reality.
Can This Be Fixed?
Experts and environmental groups say yes — but only with stronger enforcement and corporate accountability.
They call for:
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A global ban on beaching as a recycling method.
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Mandatory due diligence for shipowners and brokers.
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Legal penalties for companies that reflag ships to evade recycling laws.
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Public disclosure of all ship sales and final scrapping locations.
Some progress is being made. A few shipowners have pledged to use only certified green yards. The EU is considering new legislation to prevent last-minute reflagging. The upcoming Hong Kong Convention may help — but critics say it doesn’t go far enough, as it still allows beaching.
Until then, the practice will continue: luxury cruise ships and oil giants offloading their burdens onto the backs of the world’s poorest workers.
