Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358

www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

The shipbreaking industry in Turkey: environmental, safety

and health issues
Gökdeniz Nesxer a,*, Deniz Ünsalan a, Nermin Tekoğul a, Frank Stuer-Lauridsen b
a
Dokuz Eylül University Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology, Baku B. 32, Inciralti 35340 Izmir, Turkey
b
DHI Water and Environment, Agern Allé 5, 2970 Hørsholm, Denmark
Received 23 February 2006; accepted 7 August 2006
Available online 10 October 2006

Abstract

The shipbreaking industry seems to be an indispensable part of the economy for developing countries since it requires a small amount of
investment and, being mainly dependent on manual labour, is locally a major source for employment. From the point of ship owners, it provides
a cash flow for the renewal of fleet, by dispensing aged or irreparably damaged ships or vessels that cannot be used further due to the changing
international legislation. Properly carried out, it also meets a key sustainability requirement in recycling of resources. One of the major ship-
breaking sites is in Aliağa, Turkey; where 2.8% by number and 1.1% by tonnage of the World’s global fleet scrapped per year, was scrapped
during the 1994e2002 period. The recycled steel from the Aliağa shipbreaking yards is an important component of the steel supply in Turkey,
but only recently have the yards begun to care for environmental issues and occupational health. This study addresses these challenges of the
Aliağa shipbreaking yards: are the recent improvements of the procedures of the yards and Turkish legislation regarding environment sufficient
to allow Aliağa to claim ‘‘green recycling’’ capacity, and thus, allowing ship owners to scrap vessels in a responsible way. The ever-expanding
and constantly modernized world fleet has an increasing demand for shipbreaking, and the capacity in responsible recycling is still limited, but
Aliağa has taken the first important steps.
Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Shipbreaking; Aliağa; Environment; Pollution; Hazardous wastes; Occupational health; Working safety; Basel Convention; Green recycling

1. Introduction shipbreaking industry, is an environment-friendly activity

Recirculation of aged and non-usable ships by being scrap-
ped provides some financial support for the shipping sector
that works in a fierce competitive atmosphere where the profit
rates are low. It is an important segment of the maritime sector,
as well as a major supplier of raw material for the steel indus-
try. From the point of view of the economy of a country, it pro-
vides a considerable amount of employment since it is mainly
dependent on hand labour and is a catalyst for the economy.
Therefore, major shipbreaking countries are mainly develop-
ing countries. From the point of view of world’s environment,
re-use of scrap iron and steel, which is the main output of the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ90 232 2785565; fax: þ90 232 2785082.
xer).
E-mail address: gokdeniz.neser@deu.edu.tr (G. Nes
since it reduces the need for mining and production of raw
metal, mainly, pig iron, which is the main input of steel indus-
try: a recent study indicates that the production of steel from
hematite ore requires 7400 MJ of energy and releases
2200 kg of carbon dioxide per ton of steel, when compared
with 1350 MJ of energy and 280 kg of carbon dioxide per
ton when produced from scrap [1]. The cost of destruction
of earth’s topography due to mining activities should also be
accounted when estimating the benefits of steel production
from scrap. However, when looked on the micro-scale, scrap-
ping of old vessels is a serious challenge for the local environ-
ment and sometimes a challenge for the health of workers.
Governments who are benefiting from the economic inputs
of shipbreaking are often blamed for being reluctant to take
measures against environmental problems caused or to prop-
erly enforce the existing legislation.

0959-6526/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2006.08.018
 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358
Until 1970s, shipbreaking was a common industrial activity
both in the United States of America and in Europe. Special-
ized salvage docks, equipped with cranes and other heavy
equipment, used to scrap the ships, providing material for
the steel industry. In the 1970s, labour costs and increasing en-
vironmental regulations caused the scrapping industry to be
concentrated at the docksides in Taiwan and South Korea. In
the 1980s, those countries lost interest in shipbreaking and fo-
cused on using their shipyards for building ships. At the same
time, entrepreneurial businessmen from India, Bangladesh and
Pakistan took the initiative with a simple and transforming
idea: they would run the ships, even large tankers and bulkers
onto a beach or mudflat in an area of high tidal flux and cut the
vessel on the beach using manual labour provided by a vast
amount of workers. The scrap metal obtained was sold in
countries with few natural metal resources, at a high profit [2].
However, this labour-intensive mode of industry, together
with primitive working conditions of developing countries
and the lack of an efficient and sufficient control mechanism
caused the scrapping yards being viewed as sources of envi-
ronmental and occupational health threats. In the western
world, shipbreaking is an area that is viewed with suspicion
due to the high level of environmental awareness. The same
environmental awareness has been reflected to both national
and international authorities who adopted preventative mea-
sures against the unsafe, primitive conditions of scrapping
yards in developing countries in order to maintain the industry
at a sustainable level (Table 1).
Within the 1992e1999 period, between 2% and 4% of the
world fleet was scrapped annually. The world’s demand for
shipbreaking is predicted in a report prepared by BIMCO
[3]: a scenario predicts that in 2016, the annual amount of
ships that will be decommissioned (vessels greater than 2000
gross tonnes) will range from 6 to 8 million light displacement
Table 1
Selected developed or drafted policies, guidelines and assessments on various aspects of shipbreaking issues [3]
Basel Convention Working Group
IMO MEPC
Commission of the European Communities
ILO
Marisec
IMO COWI/DG TREN (2004) oil tanker phase out and the ship
scrapping industry
BIMCO
Norwegian Ministry of Environment, Norwegian Shipowners
Association, Norwegian Research Council
US Navy and US Marad
US EPA
Greenpeace
351
tonnes (LDT). The new IMO phase out scheme for single
hulled tankers predicts peak scrapping volumes of up to
15,000,000 LDT in 2010.
The shipbreaking industry is important for a number of
groups: ship owners who are in need of converting their
aged or non-usable ships into money for the maintenance of
their fleets, developing countries where shipbreaking is an im-
portant industry for the country’s economy and steel industry
who are dependent on this vast source of raw material. These
groups have the tendency to ignore negative environmental ef-
fects, conditions related to labour safety and occupational
health issues.
This study is focused on the specific case of this dilemma in
Turkey by trying to give a synopsis of the industry and mea-
sures taken against its environmental effects.
2. Shipbreaking industry in Turkey
According to 2005 figures, Turkey is the 12th steel produc-
ing country in the world. The steel industry of Turkey is
mainly dependent on scrap iron, as witnessed by fact that
she is the major scrap iron importing country of the world
[4]. Apart from the imported or domestically produced scrap
iron, another source of raw material for this industry is the
ships broken at the Aliağa Shipbreaking site, accounting for
about 11% of the country’s scrap iron demand [5].
Ship scrapping industry in Turkey is rather old: before
1976, ships up to several thousand light displacement tonnes
(LDT) were broken at shipbreaking yards on the Golden
Horn in Istanbul, supporting the local metal industry and
sold to the steel works at various parts of Turkey. Also,
a state-owned shipbreaking yard operated at Seymen, some
100 km southeast of Istanbul, serving for the same purpose.
Draft technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management (ESM) of the full
and partial dismantling of ships
Several papers and notes on the possible regulation of shipbreaking. Including a recent
draft guideline on recycling of ships
Technological and economic studies of ship scrapping in Europe
- Shipbreaking: a background paper
- Worker safety in the shipbreaking industries
Industry code of practice on ship recycling
Regulation on single hulled tankers
- Decommissioning and recycling of ships and the capacity of the recycling industry
- Standard contract for the sale of vessels for demolition and recycling (Demolishcon)
- Decommissioning of ships e environmental standards
- Third party environmental verification e ship decommissioning (ENVER)
- Ship decommissioning in the OECD area
- Decommissioning guidelines e the GUIDEC approach
Disposal options for ships
A guide for ship scrappers: tips for regulatory compliance
Campaign and several reports on ‘‘Ships for scrap’’
352 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358
At that date, shipbreaking industry was moved to its present
location at Aliağa, on the Aegean coast of Turkey.
Aliağa, a settlement about 50 km northwest of Izmir, the
third greatest city of Turkey, is the site of the shipbreaking in-
dustry in this country (Fig. 1). Shipbreaking yards are located
on a peninsula, together with a petrochemical complex. In an-
other area, some 15 km south of the peninsula, a number of
steel works are located that use scrap iron and steel as their
main raw material. Shipbreaking began in Aliağa in 1976 in
order to provide raw material to the above-mentioned steel
factories and foundries nearby. Apart from steel, other scrap
metals and alloys such as copper, bronze, brass and aluminium
are also obtained, as well as certain outfit and machinery from
ships that are re-used by the maritime industry.
Coastal areas allocated for shipbreaking are shown in
Fig. 1. Apart from the site to the west of the petrochemical fa-
cility, which is a government operated shipbreaking site, the
yards are public areas leased to private ship breakers for
five-year periods, but this has in 2006 been changed to 25
years leases. There are 29 plots of land, each with a seafront
of 50 m; 20 companies operate those yards. Total annual ca-
pacity of the shipbreaking yards is about 600,000 LDT, and
most of this capacity has been used in the past years. At
a nearby site on the same peninsula, the state-owned enter-
prise, MKE, operates another shipbreaking yard. A few vessels
Fig. 1. Shipbreaking zone of Aliağa and IMST measurement station.
are typically anchored in waiting just off the Aliağa coast,
where the vessel may be inspected for a hazardous waste in-
ventory and as much equipment and loose outfit are removed
from superstructures. This also allows the yard owners to min-
imize the time the ship spends in the shipbreaking yard.
Shipbreaking at Aliağa is not performed by beaching the
ships on mud flats as it is known in Pakistan, India and Ban-
gladesh. The procedure of the Aliağa yards can be character-
ised as modified slipway recycling: there is a considerable
depth near the coast and even large vessels of 10,000 LDT
are run or towed ashore. The vessel is cut from the bow and
sections of 600e800 tonnes are cut off and pulled onto the cut-
ting area on land by powerful wrenches. Smaller sections and
equipment are removed by cranes and cut in special areas,
which in some yards have impermeable concrete slabs. The
shore ground is of hard-packed soil and vehicles and cranes
can operate close to the vessel on the shore or on barges
(Fig. 2). With the absence of extreme tides and its proximity
to the local industry, the site is advantageous for shipbreaking.
However, the road to the shipbreaking yards is of low quality,
creating a hazard for work safety.
In the year 2002, 83 ships with a total of 190,468 LDT, in
the year 2003, 99 ships with a total of 193,422 LDT and in
year 2004, 136 ships with a total of 153,000 LDT have been
scrapped. However, in the year 2005, the total number of ships
scrapped is 88 with a total of 120,182 tonnes. This drop is at-
tributable to the worldwide trend of using aged ships rather
than selling them for scrap due to the increase of freight rates.
This trend is unchanged in the first half of 2006 [6]. The entire
shipbreaking yards of Aliağa have scrapped 2.8% (in number)
or 1.1% (in tonnage) of the world’s decommissioned merchant
fleet per year in the 1994e2002 period [7]. As mentioned
above, the demolishing capacity is up to 600,000 tonnes per
annum and about 800e1200 people have been employed
when at full capacity [8]. However, estimates of job creation
for up to 8000 people have been made [5]. The permanent staff
in a yard is typically less than 10. When a vessel is to be re-
cycled, a number of workers are hired from a pool of migrant
Fig. 2. A passenger ship being broken at Aliağa.
 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358 353

workers. A number of the specialised activities of shipbreak-
ing may be carried out by subcontractors, for example waste
transport, cable stripping, and halon collection. Most of the
vessels broken at Aliağa are small to medium tonnage vessels,
since it is the only shipbreaking site in Europe and Mediterra-
nean basin and the extra-cost for transporting the vessel to
south Asia, where better price per tonne of ship can be ob-
tained, is not justified.
3. Legislation
improve the regulatory regime with respect to shipbreaking
and hazardous waste management.
A regulation on ship scrapping activities has been promul-
gated by the Maritime Undersecretariat of the Ministry of
Transportation of Turkey and has come into force starting
from March 2004. According to this regulation, the facilities
are required to take certain measures to prevent pollution
caused by shipbreaking activities by 2006. A summary of
the current shipbreaking regulations, existing legislation and
rules related to shipbreaking in Turkey is in Table 2.

Turkey is a member of Basel Convention regarding the pro-

tection of environment related to shipbreaking activities since 4. Wastes caused by scrapped ships
1994. It must be expected that the ongoing process in Turkey
of approximating national legislation to the EU acquis, includ- Several classification systems for waste generated during
ing the EU Waste Shipment Regulation, will significantly operation and recycling of a vessel are presented in the

Table 2
Turkish regulation in the zone
Planning tool Promoter Field Stewardship Implementation Short description
Shipbreaking Maritime Under Onshore/ Aliağa Port The Shipbreaking Zone The controlling functions are
regulation secretariat waterfront administration Regulation has been performed in accordance with:
promulgated by the  Regulation for preventing
Ministry of Transportation collision at sea
after the start of shipbreaking  Laws and regulations of the
activities in 1970. This first Ministry of Environment and
regulation has been revised in Forestry
1986 as ‘‘Aliağa Shipbreaking  Regulation for firefighting
Zone’’, defining the land and  Regulation for occupational
sea boundaries of the zone. safety and health
Following an accident that
took place in 1992, Aliağa
Shipbreaking Zone Regulation
has been renewed, making gas
freeing mandatory and defining
the procedures. The last revision
has been made in 2004 with the
name ‘‘Shipbreaking Regulation’’
Labor health Ministry of Labor In the facilities In force since 1974
and work safety and Social Security
regulation
Hazardous Ministry of In the facilities In force since 1993
chemicals Environment
regulation
Control of Ministry of In force since 1995 This regulation has forbidden the
hazardous Environment import of all kinds of hazardous
wastes regulation wastes. Starting from 2001, the
entrance of all ships carrying
asbestos and PCB to Turkish Ports
was outlawed
Basel Convention Turkish In force since 1994 Ships containing cancerogenous
government substances such as asbestos or PCBs
were accepted as hazardous wastes
in 2004. Therefore, parties to the
treaty shall not be able to send the
ships to the countries of destination
without the consent of the port state.
Additionally, the exceeding of
obnoxious wastes the stated limits
shall be minimized
354 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358
IMO proposal for a new guideline [9]. These are based on
the existing systems by IMO, Basel Convention and ICS
and will be merged into one to suit the recycling of vessels.
Since 2002, when Aliağa was the topic of a Greenpeace re-
port [10], the Government of Turkey has initiated and imple-
mented management procedures for hazardous wastes
according to Turkish law. Today, an inventory is made of
the waste on board a vessel before the scrapping begins:
the waste is classified into three groups as reusable, hazard-
ous and very hazardous, and for the two latter different dis-
posal options are accepted.
4.1. Solid wastes
Ships that are sold to Aliağa ship breakers are mostly of
foreign flag and often most non-safety related material and
re-useable equipment are already disassembled in their coun-
try of origin. Solid wastes produced by shipbreaking can be
subclassified into 16 groups according to their composition:
paper, metals, glass and ceramics, plastics, leather, textiles,
wood, rubber, food waste, chemicals, ash, paint scrap, thermo-
col, oiled sponge, miscellaneous combustibles and non-
combustibles [11].
The ships produce a solid waste of up to 10e15% of their
LDT. In some cases ships still carry residual cargo in their
holds or tanks, and those cargoes are usually not well identi-
fied, and sometimes can even be expired chemicals. Espe-
cially, obsolete ships from some Eastern European countries
are suspected of carrying more hazardous materials than other
vessels and also command lower prices in comparison with av-
erage world prices.
At Aliağa, solid wastes identified to be ‘‘hazardous’’ were
previously disposed by burying them in a nearby area and
this area has become a storage site for some unknown hazard-
ous solid wastes [10]. Today, procedures are available that al-
low asbestos to be identified and removed from vessels by
a specialised team and disposed in a licensed hazardous waste
facility. Asbestos is a material that is a serious health threat to
workers and its usage was reduced since 1970s. However, as-
bestos is still found on many vessels, in particular on old ships
and fishing vessels.
A recent pleasing development at Aliağa is the establish-
ment of an asbestos removal and temporary storage facility op-
erated by the Turkish Ship breakers Association, and staffed
with a permanent manager. A specialist working team is em-
ployed for this purpose and a decontamination facility for
the person exposed to asbestos is available. Removed asbestos
is periodically taken by a specialised waste-treatment team
and disposed.
Of the solid wastes mentioned a number is recyclable, e.g.
glass fibres and styrophore material that are used for insulation
purposes can be recycled by removing them safely and re-
selling them to various users. Others such as chemicals, paints
and oil-mixed sludges are collected by the Turkish State Au-
thority’s (TSA) hazardous waste management unit and stored
in a specialised storage area.
4.2. Liquid wastes
Liquid wastes are generally bilge and ballast waters
contaminated by oil and various chemicals. Bilge-water in
engine rooms can be further mixed with fuel and oil. Occa-
sionally, oily waste is spilled into the seawater during the
scrapping process and the sea around the yards may be pol-
luted. However, TSA hazardous waste management proce-
dures now stipulate the use of oil spill booms when
scrapping a vessel.
The collected oily wastes are carried to reprocessing com-
panies in Aliağa or to a specialised facility for disposal and
the domestic wastes of the ships are collected in the cess-
pools of the shipbreaking yards, and later are transported
to the sewage treatment plants. Apart from the liquid pollut-
ants, seawater can also be polluted by leaching of antifouling
paint agents, such as copper oxide and tri-butyl tin. However,
since vessels are usually sent to shipbreaking yards some
time after the end of their regular docking period, the leach-
ing is at its minimum. Leaching and loss of paint chips from
cut steel plates with possible contamination of the yard soil
are limited by the relatively short storage time for cut steel
in the yards.
4.3. Atmospheric pollutants
The most important atmospheric pollutant of shipbreaking
activities is the asbestos. If not properly disposed, it can
form a cancerogenic powder. The usual way is to disassemble
asbestos linings by wetting and removing them in bulk. Pres-
ent asbestos removal facility and team for the removal of this
material have greatly reduced the risk of this mode of
pollution.
Disassembling of air conditioning and refrigeration systems
can also result in the release of refrigerant chloro-floro carbon
series chemicals that are hazardous to the ozone layer. Some
shipboard fire extinguishing systems can also be the source
of such gases. The availability of licensed companies for
this activity implies an improved capacity for this hazardous
waste in the local area.
Another source of atmospheric pollutants is the practice of
stripping the electrical cables off their insulation by burning:
plastic material used for insulation is a source of highly toxic
gases such as dioxins, polychromatic hydrocarbons, etc. [10].
This mode of recycling at Aliağa has recently been discontin-
ued, where scrap cables and wires are sold to specialist com-
panies that remove the insulation by incinerating them in
a controlled environment or by grinding the insulation off.
Apart from the atmospheric pollution, flammable gases
from fuel or oil tank residues become highly explosive if
mixed with air in certain proportions. Therefore, proper gas
freeing and gas monitoring procedures have to be followed
before a ship is broken. Greenpeace has reported several fatal
accidents in the past [10]. However, in the last few years,
paralleling the effect of new rules for shipbreaking after April
2004, there have not been any fatal accidents.
 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358 355

4.4. Marine environmental pollution data obtained from 5. Labour safety and occupational health in shipbreaking
the area near the shipbreaking zone industry

A group of marine ecologists and chemists from the Dokuz
Eylül University Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology
(IMST) have conducted a research by taking samples from the
location close to the shipbreaking yards of Aliağa (Fig. 1) at
four different times (February, April, June, and October) of
the year 2000 for an investigation of the physical, chemical
and microbiological properties of the seawater form various
depths. The results obtained are shown in Table 3, together
with the values of normal, unpolluted seawater. It has been
concluded that ‘‘. In all the periods, dissolved and total
levels of Al and Fe are above their normal levels due to the
existence of shipbreaking and steel industry ashore. Apart
from the October period, Cd, Ni and Zn at the surface water
were found to be higher than the normal levels. In this study,
flouride level has also been higher than the normal, which is
attributed to the industrial facilities ashore. At the last (Octo-
ber) period, the high levels of nitrate and total phosphate con-
centration are detected’’ [12]. At above-mentioned station near
Aliağa shipbreaking yards, heavy metal concentrations have
also been found to be extremely high. It is reported that heavy
metals and fluid wastes from the ships are main pollutants of
that coastal area.
Heavy metal pollution in this area cannot be attributed only
to shipbreaking, since Aliağa is also the home of an oil refin-
ery and a petrochemical complex. Sponza and Karaoglu [13]
report heavy metal pollution in specimens taken from soil, wa-
ter and air at the vicinity of above-mentioned steel works,
south of Aliağa.
A study has also been carried out at a similar shipbreaking
location at Alang, India. It has been reported that at a near-
shore station near Alang, concentrations of Fe, Mn, Co, Cu,
Zn, Pb, Cd, Ni and Hg are 25e15,500% higher when com-
pared to another control station at Piram [14].
‘‘Shipbreaking is a labour-intensive business that is often
carried out in Asia with little and no regard for the environ-
ment and the safety of workers’’. This comment has become
a cliché in almost all published material regarding the ship-
breaking industry. However, the highly competitive conditions
of present day international marine industry have been dictat-
ing that labour-intensive business is being concentrated in de-
veloping countries.
Therefore, the main task is in the maintenance of proper
working conditions and the protection of the health of the
labourers.
Shipbreaking is one of the most hazardous activities of
maritime industry. This is due to the structural complexity of
the ships and due to the possible exposures to asbestos, poly-
chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), lead, hazardous materials and
chemicals, as well as excess noise and fire and explosions.
A report prepared by the U.S. Department of Labor Occu-
pational Safety and Health Administration for a national pro-
gram on reduction of workplace hazards for shipbreaking
operations, hazardous activities related to shipbreaking are
listed as follows [15]:
 Entry into confined, enclosed and other dangerous
atmospheres;
 Paint removal;
 Metal cutting and disposing;
 Powered industrial truck operations;
 Working on elevated surfaces;
 Bilge and ballast water removal;
 Oil and fuel removal and tank cleaning;
 Removal and disposal of ship’s machinery;
 Operations involving cranes, gear, and material handling
equipment;

Table 3
Results of seawater analysis at a station near shipbreaking yards, measured by DEU IMST [12]
Measured parameter Normal seawater Measurements at different months
February April June October
Surface Bottom Surface Bottom Surface Bottom Surface Bottom
Total iron (mg/l) .002e.02 1.0 1.0 .44 .51 .40 .20 .45 .43
Dissolved iron (mg/l) 5.5  105 .90 .90 .42 .50 .30 .20 .45 .42
Total aluminium (mg/l) .0004 No measurement No measurement No measurement No measurement .20 .30 .040 .048
made made made made
Total cadmium (mg/l) .1 No measurement No measurement No measurement No measurement .05 .05 .15 .03
made made made made
Total nickel (mg/l) .0001e.0005 No measurement No measurement No measurement No measurement .0012 .002 .0042 .0006
made made made made
Total zinc (mg/l) .005e.014 No measurement No measurement No measurement No measurement .033 .028 .019 .0036
made made made made
Flouride (mg/l) 1.3e1.4 No measurement No measurement No measurement No measurement 1.5 1.5 3.45 3.00
made made made made
Nitrate (mg/l) 28e70 14.8 15.5 23.8 21 8.3 9.6 55 86
(in coastal waters)
Total phosphate (mg/l) <35 11.7 17.3 26.3 21.7 9.2 8.0 15.1 26.6
(in coastal waters)
356 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358
 Cutting and welding operations and use of compressed
gas; and
 Activities involving scaffolds, ladders and working
services.
Workers employed by ship breakers are often offered very
inadequate conditions from the point of view of safety and
health. Aliağa shipbreaking yards now use mandatory gas free-
ing procedures and requirements of getting hot work certifi-
cates are met and therefore no serious accidents have been
reported since 2003.
Another important factor is the lack of a properly maintained
road leading to the Aliağa facilities. The existing road gets de-
stroyed by heavy rains and excessive traffic of heavy loaded
trucks. That road can also be a cause of heavy traffic accidents.
A first-aid facility and trained personnel have been made
available at the shipbreaking facilities of Aliağa in order to
provide first aid and shipbreaking yard managements are
made responsible to enforce the safe working conditions.
A research carried out by Mattorano et al. [16] in a ship-
breaking yard reports evidences of exposure to heavy metals
due to welding, torch cutting, grinding and abrasive blasting
operations and it has been found that the workers are subjected
to heavy metals such as cadmium and lead.
A pleasing development in the Aliağa shipbreaking area is
the establishment of an asbestos removal center. In order to
prevent the emission of asbestos-containing dust, the Turkish
Ship breakers Association has established a center with trained
personnel in Aliağa. Specialists from that center can detect as-
bestos and inform the ship breakers. However, the use of ser-
vices of this center is not obligatory and personnel of the
center perform their job only if requested from the breaking
yard. If not removed by trained personnel, emission of asbes-
tos-dust is very likely and this is a threat not only to the
workers, but also to the inhabitants of the area nearby.
6. Recommendation for cleaner shipbreaking yards
As shown in Table 3, the coastal zone of Aliağa suffers from
pollution originating from the shipbreaking yards. This is most
probably caused by actions of the past, but even if all yards fol-
low the upgrading of waste management as made available by
TSA, some impact to the environment is unavoidable as long as
the vessel under recycling is not separated from the sea. The ul-
timate solution is dry docking as proposed in the Basel Conven-
tion document ‘‘Technical Guidelines on Environmentally
Sound Management (ESM) of Full and Partial Dismantling
of Ships’’. However, this document also addresses stepwise up-
grading process leading and with regard to the Aliağa yards the
issues to be dealt within one year, one to five years and five to
10 years and the shipbreaking yards in Turkey have been eval-
uated accordingly (Table 4).
A responsible shipping company has expressed its desire
‘‘The ships will be emptied of asbestos, oil and other environ-
mentally hazardous product before they are cut up. We expect
the market for ‘green’ shipbreaking to grow and to remain
competitive’’ [17]. Besides the fact that ‘‘green’’ shipbreaking
may soon become a priority, conventional single-hull tankers,
which are prone to spilling their cargo at collisions, will not be
able to sail at international waters after 2016 and shall be
scrapped. This is expected to become a main activity for
ship breakers worldwide.
A decision taken on the meeting of the Basel Convention
on 29th October 2004, in Geneve, Switzerland has declared
that old ships should be considered as toxic wastes. Therefore,
it is resolved that ships are required to be cleaned from their
toxic contents. This decision, if properly applied, is considered
to be a very important step towards having cleaner seas and
coastlines. It requires a control system around the sea and
land borders of shipbreaking yards.
The paralleling regulation promulgated by the Maritime
Under secretariat of Turkey, effective from the year 2004,
has a distinct emphasis on the hazardous wastes and rules
for their disposal, as opposed to previous regulations. It also
has references to the relevant environmental and social secu-
rity legislations and sets a system of coordination. According
to these regulations, companies not complying with the pre-
ventive measures of Basel Convention shall not be permitted
to perform shipbreaking.
It appears that the application of these rules will bring
a number of problems in front: although the regulations in-
clude a number of actions aimed to improve occupational
safety, occupational health and environmental protection,
a good and timely mechanism of inspection and enforcement
is required to achieve the result.
Another factor is the use of subcontracting system for ship-
breaking operations: the risks and responsibilities related to
shipbreaking activities are taken by subcontractors rather
than by the shipbreaking yard owners. This makes the control
of working conditions very difficult from the point of view of
occupational health and safety and environment. The yards
must be able to contractually oblige the contractor to the appli-
cable rules, and the yards must demand that subcontractors
present evidence that rules are complied with. If this condition
cannot be met, the shipbreaking yards are left with the only
choice of having their own personnel, welltrained and certified
for this purpose, to perform necessary jobs and reduce risks.
Apart from the shipbreaking, the yards should also have
certified personnel to be specifically employed for firefighting,
removal of insulating layer, cutting and welding, crane opera-
tion and material handling. OSHA [15] has been insisting on
mandatory training for safer working environments, with re-
gards to the following:
 provision of adequate worker training;
 use of proper personnel protective equipment;
 obedience to fire protection measures; and
 arrangements for appropriate emergency action teams
such as firefighting, rescue, first aid, pollution prevention
and other services.
The combustible wastes obtained from scrapped ships are re-
garded as an alternative fuel, and can be used as a fuel by proper
gasification or incineration with proper pollution protective
 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358 357

Table 4
Generic checklist for closing the gaps e achieving environmentally sound management-compliance [7]
(A) Implementation of actions immediately (B) Within one to five years (C) Within five to 10 years at the latest Shipbreaking in
at the latest within one year Turkey
Physical identification and labeling Adequate transfer operations facilities Impermeable floors wherever hazardous A: Compliance
of hazardous materials on board materials and wastes are handled B: Non-compliance
C: Non-compliance
Cleaning of oil tanks/compartments Spill containment boom Adequate draining and pumping A: Compliance
before hot work commences equipment B: Compliance
C: Compliance
Use solvents to dissolve heavyweight Minimize use of manual labour inside Provide adequate treatment/disposal A: Non-compliance
sludge so that most oil and sludge the tanks for removal operations facilities for different hazardous B: Non-compliance
can be pumped out (use of pumps) materials C: Non-compliance
Ventilate compartments/tanks Provide adequate storm water Spill cleanup equipment A: Compliance
continuously discharge facilities, to avoid B: Non-compliance
contamination of storm water runoff C: Non-compliance
Introduce a hot work certification Create an enclosed chamber in the Create a separate area for paint removal A: Compliance
system ship where asbestos has been operations, with impermeable floor. B: Compliance
identified. Limit access. Filter air Cover and install air filtration C: Non-compliance
emissions
Test compartments for presence of Create dedicated area for asbestos Create a dedicated area for segregation A: Compliance
flammable vapors before hot work removal. Limit access of hazardous materials (e.g. PCBs) B: Compliance
C: Non-compliance
Provide adequate storage facilities Collect and contain all wastes Complete containment/impermeable A: Compliance
for hazardous wastes resulting from asbestos removal floors B: Compliance
processes. Pack asbestos in C: Compliance.
approved packaging system Not adequate
Test compartments for presence of Decontaminate workers when A: Non-compliance
toxins, corrosives, irritants before leaving the asbestos removal area B: Compliance
entrance (manual cleaning)
Identify and remove toxic or flammable A: Non-compliance
paint prior to metal cutting
Collect and contain all wastes resulting A: Compliance.
from paint removal processes Collected wastes have
been contained in
sewage wells.
Contamination between
wastes and the soil
Spill cleanup and notification procedures A: Compliance
Always wear rigid helmets, hard-toed A: Non-compliance
shoes and gloves, as well as personnel
protective equipment for eyes, face and skin
Use appropriate protective equipment A: Non-compliance
against respiratory hazards
Keep fire extinguishing equipment A: Compliance
immediately available
Implement appropriate asbestos management A: Compliance
procedures in accordance with ILO code
of practice
Work with asbestos should be carried out by A: Compliance
trained personnel only
Determine pollutant concentrations prior to A: Non-compliance
the removal of bilge and ballast water
Removal and disposal of PCB-containing A: Non-compliance
material in a controlled manner

measures. The energy obtained can be used for power genera-
tion. Such a policy will solve the waste-disposal problem and
also will protect the coastal zone environment [18].
7. Conclusions
Shipbreaking provides raw material for the steel and other
metallurgical industries from the used production equipment
of the transport sector. From the point of view of sustainable
production, it is a model industry since it reduces the need
for the highly polluting mining, mine-enrichment and pig
iron production industries. However, due to the nature of the
ships and highly polluting materials they carry, it may harm
not only worker’s health but also the coastal zone environment
if preventive measures are not taken.
The regulations and measures taken by governments for the
protection of the environment have been studied for the spe-
cific case of Aliağa shipbreaking zone in Turkey. As a country
358 G. Nesxer et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 350e358
with a developed economy, shipbreaking may lose its appeal
with the rising costs due to the latest restrictive regulations,
the need for investment and the increasing cost of labour.
The historical trend in Europe, South Korea and Japan where
the conversion of the shipbreaking yards to shipyards for ship
construction and repair have taken place, may also strike Tur-
key [19]. Many of the ship breakers of Aliağa have expressed
their interest in being converted to shipbuilding and ship repair
[20]. Although, the contribution to the employment and na-
tional economy may be seen to be offset by the environmental
risks and for the need for better working environments; the
shipbreaking industry in Turkey is at a crucial moment. As
an OECD country, Turkey can recycle ships without violating
the Basel Convention ban on export to non-OECD countries,
provided the proper waste management system is available
and used in the shipbreaking facilities. The question is now,
whether the steps taken in Turkey to embark on the road of im-
provement is sufficient to develop the green recycling capacity
that is demanded by the EU, the responsible ship owners and
the international community.
If not, it seems that for the years to come shipbreaking will
be an industry restricted to the third world countries where la-
bour is cheaper and concern for health and environment is less
of an issue.
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