The ship recycling industry is often criticised for unacceptable occupational health and safety practices. In order to support the development of technical solutions and new regulatory norms, there is an urgent need for quantitative data explaining the impacts of ship recycling practices on health and safety. Therefore, this study investigated hazardous noise exposure in ship recycling yards by identifying the sources of noise, quantifying their potential impacts on workers and making recommendations for improvement. A noise exposure investigation in an operational ship recycling yard was conducted, which comprised a general noise survey, a personal noise exposure measurement for workers and comparison of the results with the exposure limits and action values defined by the European Union's Physical Agents (Noise) Directive (EC 2003b). The results of this study show that ship recycling workers are at risk of experiencing occupational noise induced hearing loss as a result of being exposed to hazardous noise levels for prolonged periods of time. This study explains that those working with torch cutting equipment, in particular, are most at risk. The study also shows that there is currently a lack of appropriate hearing protection being used in ship recycling yards
Essential to steel production in Bangladesh, the ship recycling industry has become a vital component of the country's economy. After four decades of growth, Bangladesh continues to compete with India to lead the international ship recycling industry. In the Chittagong area, the ship recycling sector, and related downstream activities, provides employment and resources to nearby communities. Despite its profitability and income generation, poor working practices and low environmental standards tarnish the image of the sector at national and international levels. Numerous accidents and fatalities in ship recycling processes highlight the lack of adequate Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) standards. Seasonal migrant workers, many of whom unfamiliar with industrial settings, represent the majority of workers in ship recycling yards. Recruited by subcontractors, most of the workers in Bangladesh lack sufficient hazard awareness and basic safety requirements necessary to work in a ship recycling yard. For these reasons, as identified by the Bangladesh High Court and subsequent national rules, training of workers must be addressed in yards in Bangladesh. In this study, associated with the IMO-NORAD SENSREC project, existing conditions, solely about workers' training, has been addressed, assessed, and compared in accordance with IMO's Hong Kong Convention and ILO requirements, where detailed recommendations were provided to enhance OHS training in the yards.
Ship recycling has drawn significant attention in the last decade due to the poor work practices in the industry, which led to the development of new international regulations. As a result, the operational costs of a ship recycling yard will increase since the new regulations are require more stringent standards for preserving the occupational and environmental health and safety of the people involved in ship recycling activities. The challenge for the ship recycling industry is to comply with the new regulations while staying profitable. Therefore, improvement of the current operational procedures and current levels of productivity will be critical to survive in a competitive industry dominated by low-cost substandard yards. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to increase the productivity of the ship recycling yard through the improvement of recycling processes. In this study, cutting operation in the secondary zone of a yard is investigated using discrete event simulation approach. Alternative cutting technologies have been tested in a simulation environment in order to assess their impact on production performance and operating costs. This study shows that plasma cutting is a good alternative to oxyfuel cutting in ship recycling and demonstrates that 60% improvement in the throughput can be achieved through the implementation of the tool. Overall research conducted in this study will be significant contribution to the maritime literature as a novel approach for modelling ship recycling processes and for the implementation of cutting technologies to operations.
Ship recycling is gaining attention in Indonesia due to the increase in end-of-life ships and uneconomical nationally flagged ships, and is considered a prospective source of economic development and employment opportunity, and yet conceivably poses a threat to the health and safety of workers and the environment. There are international and national regulations that govern ship-recycling activities to ensure that the hazardous impacts of the industry are minimized. We investigated the disparity between current ship-breaking practices in Indonesia and the requirements of related international and national regulations, with the findings intended for use as a stepping stone to proposing a strategy to establish a green and sustainable ship-recycling industry. A benchmark study of the world’s leading ship-recycling countries was conducted, and a gap analysis was performed by comparing existing international and national regulations with current ship-breaking practices in Indonesia. We identified two types of ship-breaking practices in Indonesia: Conventional environmentally unfriendly ship-breaking method, conducted by most Indonesian ship-breaking yards, and a rather modern, more environmentally friendly method, conducted by ship-repair yards. However, neither of the practices met the requirements of the regulations, and improvements are therefore needed to make the ship-recycling industry more green and sustainable, and to gain international recognition.
When ships reached the end of their operational life, they are required to be dismantled in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. However, current ship recycling process in Indonesia is not compliant with the standard of existing rules and is not environmentally friendly and dangerous to the safety of the workers. In this paper, a comprehensive gap analysis was conducted through the comparison of the current process with the standard of international regulations from health and safety perspective. The analysis is based on the expert judgement technique that combined the field observation and questionnaire to assess the current process as well as to identify the process related gaps compared to the current regulations. This has been achieved through these major steps: (1) Identification of ship recycling process, (2) Established an expert team, (3) Development of ideal process (4) Field observation (5) Development of observed process flow (6) Identify the gap.
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