Bangladesh Level Two

BANGLADESH LEVEL TWO

1. SHIP BREAKING

Until the 1960s, ship breaking was considered a highly mechanized operation, concentrated in industrialized countries, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. Over the years it has gravitated toward countries with low labor costs, weak regulations on occupational safety, and limited environmental enforcement. Currently, the global center of the ship breaking and recycling industry is located in South Asia, specifically Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. These three countries account for 70–80 percent of the international market for ship breaking of ocean-going vessels.

Supply of iron and employment are the two main economic arguments behind allowing ship breaking. In Bangladesh ship breaking contributes to meeting 25 to 30 per cent of the total iron demand and employs around 3,000 permanent workers. Compared to the so-called economic contribution of the industry, its environmental and social costs are frightening.

Working Conditions

Shipbreaking activities in Bangladesh are concentrated in the north of Chittagong City on the Bay of Bengal. The people working in shipbreaking yards often come from the poorest areas of the countries. Working conditions can be inhumane. A 2003 government study found nearly 90 percent of workers suffered some form of accidental injury — from foot injuries to serious accidents — while working in Chittagong yards. Shipbreakers often dismantle ships without wearing any sort of protection, inhaling toxic gases and exposing themselves to a great deal of injury.

The International Labour Organisation has described the work on breaking beaches as amongst the most dangerous jobs in the world. Accidents occur on a daily basis, leaving many workers severely injured and permanently disabled. The absence of reliable statistics makes any assessment of the number of accidental deaths linked to shipbreaking on the beaches difficult, but there are strong indications, when adding also deaths due to toxic waste-related illnesses, that the number exceeds one hundred every year. Even more workers get seriously injured. In addition, an investigation by the international Federation for human Rights found that at least 20 percent of the workers in the shipbreaking yards of Chittagong are less than 15 years old.

Pollution Heaven

Following strictures in most developed and developing countries, the inherently dangerous ship breaking industry has moved to South Asia taking advantage of the weak enforcement of environment and labor-related laws. The industry has closed in countries that enforce law and take into consideration the environmental and human costs. It has moved to areas that according to the World Bank are regarded as “pollution heavens”. Till the South Asian countries remain illusive about the industry’s short-term profit and fail to take conscious and objective decisions, the economics of ship breaking will continue to favor the developed nations which find a free place to dump their junk without incurring any cost whatsoever.

Ships destined for breaking are “waste”, as defined by the Basel Convention (that deals with hazardous waste), and in most cases likely to contain hazardous substances to an extent rendering such ships “hazardous waste”. Following Basel, the EU has recognised ships for dismantling as “hazardous waste” and so has the judiciary in India and Bangladesh. The EU, however, is ignoring an amendment to the Convention that prohibits export of waste from OECD to non-OECD countries and also the Basel requirement of not sending ships to a destination where they will not be dismantled in an environmentally safe manner. Instead, EU flag carrier ships merely change the flags to those of small island countries prior to their final voyage towards the South Asian beaches, a process termed the Flag of Convenience. This relieves ship owners of all responsibilities to clean their ships and bear the cost of dismantling and environmentally safe disposal of waste.

In Bangladesh, government agencies have tactically bypassed the Supreme Court’s directions to regulate the industry. Ignoring the court’s directions for framing binding rules, Bangladesh’s ministry of environment and forests opted for non-binding guidelines and policies. It also did not pay heed to the court’s directions against giving conditional clearances to ship breaking units and cleared at least 66 such units. The ministry has circumvented directions of court to not allow ships with “inbuilt toxics” unless they are removed outside the territory of Bangladesh by amending the Import Policy Order.

Ship breaking also causes devastating pollution. The ships are laden with asbestos, used in old ships as a heat insulator. As there are no asbestos disposal procedures, during scrapping, workers and the surrounding environment are exposed to the asbestos fibers which may cause cancer and asbestosis. On the shipbreaking beaches, asbestos fibers and flocks fly around in the open air, and workers take out asbestos insulation materials with their bare hands. Exposure to other heavy metals found in many parts of ships such as in paints, coatings, anodes and electrical equipment can result in cancers and also cause damage to blood vessels.

Using the beaching method, ships are broken on sandy sediments without containment. Holes are drilled into the hulls to wash out the oil. Sludge and other nonbiodegradable contaminants are dumped into unsealed pits in the ground where they easily seep away. Open burning of cables creates even worse pollutants such as dioxins and furans which are known to be carcinogens. Oil residues refuses are being spilled, left floating along the entire seashore, and causing serious damage in different ways.

The few studies that have been done of these beach environments have shown high levels of contamination causing the pollution of essential groundwater reserves as well as the tragic loss of local fisheries and associated job. A December 2010 study of the World Bank depicted an alarming state of pollution of soil in the ship breaking area at Chittagong’s beaches. The study also projected that in the next 20 years Bangladesh’s beaches will accumulate not less than 79,000 tons of asbestos, 240,000 tons of PCB, 1,978,000 tons of waste liquid organic and 69,200 tons of the toxic tributyltin.

1. SHRIMP CULTIVATION

Shrimp cultivation began in Bangladesh in the mid-1970s when exports totaled 4.7 million dollars a year.

Until the global economic crisis, it was a 534-million-dollar-a-year business, with 42,000 tons of exports, mainly to the United States and Europe. After the garment industry, shrimp production ranks second in Bangladesh in terms of the sector’s ability to earn foreign exchange. Not only does this crop earn valuable foreign exchange, but the sector also employs significant numbers of rural workers and provides a livelihood for households throughout much of Bangladesh. A study by USAID estimates that as many as 1.2 million people may be directly involved in shrimp production with an additional 4.8 million household members supported by the industry.

The local environment and the means of livelihood of the local people have been greatly damaged due to shrimp cultivation.

Salinisation of Water

Most of the shrimp culture being practised is by the extensive and improved extensive methods, known as Gher culture. Gher means an enclosed area characterized by an encirclement of land along the banks of tidal rivers. Dwarf earthen dykes and small wooden sluice boxes control the free entrance of saline water into the enclosed areas. In the Gher, the sluice gates are opened from February to April to allow the entry of saline water.

The practice of shrimp culture needs saline water as an input to the shrimp pond. Sluice gates are normally allowed to open two or three times when the salinity in the shrimp pond decreases and saltwater exchange from the river is necessary. As a result, heavy sedimentation from upstream water settles in the riverbed and canal bed, causing waterlogging in the shrimp ponds and on agricultural land. The shrimp-processing depot and industry drain their pollutants into the river, causing water pollution. Years of this practice has increased the soil's salinity and reduced its fertility. Stagnant saline water in shrimp ponds often seeps into the groundwater making it useless. There are also increased costs to health from a rise in water-borne skin diseases (resulting from stagnating and polluted saline water).

Deforestation

Deforestation reached an unprecedented scale in the 1970s and early 1980s when the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank gave funds to the government to promote shrimp farming for export. For instance, CHOKORIA Sundarban in the coastal district of Coz's Bazar in southeast Bangladesh, once a reserved and protected mangrove forest, is deserted today. The roots provided a safe shelter to the fish shrimp and aquatic reptiles. But, today, most trees, animals (such as tigers, deer and wild cats), and fish species have disappeared. From 7,938 hectares (ha) in 1976, the mangrove had been reduced to a mere 188 ha in 1995. Shrimp farms have replaced most of the once dense forests. As much as 38% of global mangrove destruction is linked to shrimp farm development. Global mangrove deforestation rates now exceed those of tropical rainforests, the damage being caused by pollution and by clearing of the vegetation to make way for new farms. Experts fear that the shrimp culture can gradually increase acid sulphate in the soil to such an extent that regeneration of mangroves may become impossible.

Unequal share of costs

According to the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) while shrimp farming brings fortunes to some, it incurs significant opportunity costs for almost every household. Vegetation, crops, fish and livestock are seriously damaged by the process of shrimp cultivation. The opportunities lost include those for rearing poultry and livestock, growing fruit trees, kitchen gardening, culturing fish in homestead ponds, availability of cow dung and firewood for fuel, and access to fresh drinking water. If all the benefits which a peasant household derives from these sources (in terms of direct consumption, cash income and employment) are taken account of, then shrimp cultivation is far less profitable than is claimed.

In shrimp culture, income distribution is heavily biased in favor of the owners or controllers of the field. According to a recent report, 70 per cent of the shrimp fields in the greater Khulna district are owned or controlled by outsiders, 20 per cent by local rich landowners and the remaining 10 per cent by the small and marginal farmers. Shrimp entrepreneurs tend to maximise their profit by expanding the area under cultivation rather than intensifying it-reflected clearly in the low yield data. Often expansion of shrimp farms is achieved through coercion, forcing the poor to give up their lands

Saltwater Aggression

A British pressure group, Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) says some prawn farms are controlled by criminal gangs who use violence and intimidation to force away traditional farmers. There are cases, the group says, when they have their crops flooded with saltwater to make way for prawn farms.

A number of farmers were forced into the business when big shrimp farm owners flooded their fields with saline water. Several police cases have been lodged against farm owners and their musclemen for trying to open the sluice gates and flooding paddy fields with saline water. The issue also had a political impact. During the 2008 national election only those politicians won who promised to fight saltwater aggression. Over the past few years, Thousands of farmers staged protests against saline water based shrimp cultivation.

1. SOLAR ENERGY

In Bangladesh 60% of the population do not have access to the power grid. The country only produces 3500-4200 MW of electricity against a daily demand for 4000-5200 MW on average, according to official estimates. Solar energy is an ideal solution as it can provide gridless power and is totally clean in terms of pollution and health hazards. Since it saves money on constructing electricity transmission lines, it’s economical as well.

Bangladesh receives an average daily solar radiation of 4– 6.5 kWh/m2. Since 1996, penetration of SHSs increased rapidly, mainly due to the efforts of Grameen Shakti, which sells PV systems on credit to rural households through its extensive network. In 2002, just 7,000 households in Bangladesh were using solar panels, but In June 2009, 320,000 consumers had new solar home systems, surpassing the original target of 50,000 by a factor of 600 percent.

Now more than one million households, or five million people, are benefitting from solar energy. A simple plug-and-play technology, the solar home system is well suited to a country with 300 sunny days on an average. Home systems can easily meet the small needs of two-thirds of the 100 million rural Bangladeshis with no access to electricity from the grid.

If the cost of electricity from renewable sources is quite high, but said that solar power is still popular in rural areas for lighting, especially when compared to the cost of kerosene for lamps.

Typically, people from the poorer sections opt for an SHS set that costs $124 and capable of generating about 10 watts of electricity to light a five watt CFL for about three hours. Better off people buy more powerful systems, paying 35 per cent of the total cost of the SHS in advance and the balance over a 12-month period. Costs vary with energy output, with the most expensive model costing $925 and providing 135 watts of uninterrupted power for four hours.

Grameen Shakti is the largest organization installing rural based solar home system (SHS) in Bangladesh. Other companies working on similar solar energy based SHS are Rural Services Foundation (RSF), Brac, Hilfulfujal and so on. The model of micro finance based SHS is now being copied in other parts of the world as a successful business model.

GS, a pioneer in promoting 'green energy', started out in 1996 as a lone player and today is the largest distributor of SHS - over 700,000 units out of a total of about 1 million in the country - contributing to the daily generation of about 60 Mw of solar power.

The government owned Infrastructure Development Company (IDCOL) estimates that each SHS saves at least $61.80 worth of kerosene every year and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 375 kilograms annually as a result

The government has set a target of generating 500 megawatts (MW) of green energy – almost ten times the current amount – by 2015, in an attempt to narrow the gap between current supplies of grid electricity and the needs of the country’s 160 million people. Fossil fuels account for almost all the current capacity of 5,500 MW, with renewable sources – mostly solar power – contributing just 55 MW.

Since November 2010, the government has mandated the installation of roof-top solar panels on all new high-rise buildings, and it currently has other solar power projects under development. Under the plan, 340 MW of new capacity will be generated from systems installed on residential, commercial and industrial buildings, as well irrigation pumps, mini-grid systems and solar parks. On the other hand the government also plans to implement a mega solar project by setting up a 500 MW solar panel-based power installation with financial support from the ADB. Such a project will require a huge investment of $2-3 billion according to power ministry officials.

1. ARSENIC CONTAMINATION

In the early 1970s, most people living in the countryside relied on surface water -- ponds, or rivers -- to meet their drinking water needs. As a result diseases due to bacteria-contaminated water, such as diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera were extremely widespread. To tackle this problem, and the related problem of drinking water, the government switched to a policy of tapping groundwater. The government began providing villages with tubewells and handpumps, with aid from such organisations as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank:UNICEF initiated the programme and paid for the first 900,000 tubewells along with its co-sponsor.

Even as millions of dollars were pumped into the country as aid for 'clean' drinking water, and between 8-12 million tubewells installed, the stage got set for what the WHO has called the biggest outbreak of mass poisoning in history tested for arsenic.

Arsenic poisoning was first discovered in West Bengal, India, in the 1980s. In 1993 arsenic-contaminated wells were also discovered in Bangladesh. Finally in 2000, the first comprehensive well-testing program was conducted in Bangladesh by the British Geological Survey.Of the 2,022 wells tested, the survey found 35 percent to contain water with levels of arsenic above Bangladesh’s standard of 50 parts per billion (ppb). 8.4 percent of tested wells were found to contain water with over 300 ppb of arsenic, an unacceptably high level. In contrast, the World Health Organization (WHO) proclaims that water with over 10 ppb arsenic is unsafe to drink. According to a survey done by Bangladesh’s Dhaka Community Hospital and the National Institute for Preventive and Social Medicine, 38 percent of water samples collected from 27 of Bangladesh’s 28 districts were unsuitable for drinking by national Arsenic standards, while 58 percent were unacceptable by WHO standards.