The business of ship recycling

Late last year, the world was treated to the sight of a group of elderly ex-US Government ships being towed across the Atlantic from their long layup in US waters to a special recycling facility in Northern England. It was an operation that was to become controversial, as environmentalists challenged the validity of permissions that had been given by the local authority to the recycling company.

But the drama did show the general public that there was indeed a “business” in ship scrap and that properly organised, with due environmental safeguards, an industrial operation to dismantle ships could still be undertaken in a highcost industrial country. Indeed, with more than 150 other members of the US Government “ghost fleet” awaiting disposal, there was clearly a viable industry that was just waiting to start up, once the environmental objections had been overcome.

Ship demolition is necessary as ships become redundant, and provides a large amount of recyclable materials. Some 95% of an average merchant ship will be re-used, from the steel which will be either sheared into smaller lumps to be fed into furnaces for re-rolling, to the non-ferrous metals and pipework of the ship which will be re-used.

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