With India and Pakistan also tightening regulations for ship breaking following a recent IMO ruling one school of thought suggests this industry will simply move continents.

Ingvild Jenssen from the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking has told the Ecologist magazine how tougher regulations simply relocated the ship breaking industry in the past from East Asia to south Asia and could see the industry shift to Africa soon.

In the 1970s ships were dismantled in Europe under far better conditions that what we are witnessing on the beaches of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. But when Europe introduced stricter legislation to protect workers and the environment the industry moved to first Japan, Taiwan and China. There as well safety and environmental rules were progressively introduced and the industry then moved to South Asia.

It has therefore been a continuous race to the bottom and we fear that Africa will be the next destination if no measures are introduced to stop today's dangerous and polluting practice of beach breaking.

(Sourced from seatradeasia online.com)