4 ms·
Ships are often full of asbestos, hydraulic fluid, poisonous bilge etc., not to mention this one has been floating around without upkeep so might be structurall
by growlist 7y ago
Ships are often full of asbestos, hydraulic fluid, poisonous bilge etc., not to mention this one has been floating around without upkeep so might be structurally dubious. It's not as simple as
1. Climb onto ship
2. Fire up blowtorch
3. Profit
- iguy 7y agoSure, but there's an industry which does this. Although whether their price would pay for towing it from Ireland to Bangladesh or wherever, I have no idea. Edit: turns out there are more places doing this in Europe than I realised (and in Turkey). There's a map here: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/ships/list.htm https://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/ships/list.htm
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoShould only need to tow it to Turkey (I know for a fact there are marine salvage yards there) or maybe Libya (they probably have a few as well). There's no lack of more local (than the far east) places to scrap a ship, probably environmentally cleaner to do it locally too.
- mattmanser 7y agoNo, there's an industry that claims to do this, just like there was an industry for global plastic until the Chinese government shut it down because it was essentially a scam.
- iguy 7y agoOh they absolutely do cut up ships & recycle the steel. You can watch it happen from space! Whether they keep any promises they make about how they handle oil, asbestos, worker safety, of course that's another question.
- everybodyknows 7y agoThe sad reality is that much shipbreaking is done in jurisdictions without effective environmental laws -- for just that reason. Case in point: https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/greenpeace-regrets-ship-recycling-choice https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/greenpeace-regret...