Hey It's Will Cooper, I'm here at the Vice offices in Brooklyn.
My colleagues over in Bangladesh recently discovered that the world's biggest cargo carriers
end up in the city of Chittagong.
Where 200,000 people salvage them by hand.
So we sent our guys out to find out what it is like in the city where ships go to die.
This is the ship breakers of Bangladesh.
The global economy remains reliant on the shipping industry
with massive cargo carriers responsible for transporting 90% of international trade
In their final days these hulking leviathans are brought to shore
and salvaged in a process known as shipbreaking
Environmental and labor regulations have rid the developed world of this practice
Leaving countries like Bangladesh to corner the market
It continues to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the world
Most of the shipbreaking workers are coming from the northern part of the country which is the
poorest part of the country where they have no work and no business to do
So, all those poor workers come here to find a job
Most of the workers are 15 to 30 but they involve young workers a lot
So, among the total work force 25% of them are below 18.
Chittagong's 80 active shipyards employ roughly 200,000 workers
Most of whom have been recruited from rural parts of the country by wealthy families
who run every facet of the booming industry.
Over 80% of Bangladesh's steel come from ship salvaging
which is melted in a rebar for construction
As the country's urbanization accelerates, it has grown dependent on the supply of salvaged steel for development.
In 2013, shipyard accidents killed nearly 2 workers a month in Chittagong
daily exposure to hazardous materials like asbestos, lead, and PCBs, cause even more fatalities
According to the international labor organization,
workers face every occupational health and safety hazard
The workers who are working there, they are working
without any kind of safety measurement
they are not provided any kind of personal equipment
there is no precautionary measurement for them
they are working without any kind of safety measurement
and there is no treatment or medical facilities for them
those workers are working there for 12 to 16 hours a day
Keep a shot on that, at least you can say
Most of the ships are owned by European shipping companies
and they are not cleaning the ships, before bringing the ships in our country
The poor workers are not worried about the hazardous materials that are inside the ships
materials like asbestos, PCBs
black oil, brown oil, they are all throwing on the ocean
they are all throwing on the surrounding environment.
The shipbreaking in a country like Bangladesh will never stop
because it's a good place for the people who don't care about the environment
who don't care about the human rights
because its standard is very low, and nobody, you know, talks about this.