exposure

The doomed ships that wait off the coast of Alang, India can be described as 50,000 tonne toxic barrels.

When the twice-monthly high tide comes, they fire their diesel engines for the last time and ram themselves into the soft tidal mud between the dismembered hulks of other ships. When the tide recedes, the 40,000 workers of Alang's shipbreaking yards, the world's largest, swarm over the vessels, reducing them to scrap by hand.

But the very fabric of the ships carries a deadly cargo. Asbestos, toxic heavy metals and other hazardous chemicals spill over the workers and into the air, mud and water. Of those that aren't killed or maimed in daily accidents many more may die from the effects of the pollution - for a daily wage of just a couple of dollars.

Over the past three years, Greenpeace has opened the eyes of the world to this once-hidden industry and exposed the cruel economics that encourage wealthy nations to dump toxin-laden ships on poor ones. As a consequence, working conditions in the shipbreaking yards have improved - though they are still extremely unpleasant and hazardous.

Nityanand Jayaraman, a Bangalore-based journalist who has worked on the Greenpeace shipbreaking campaign since it began in 1998, describes the challenges of changing the industry.

"Visiting the shipbreaking yards at Alang drove home the point to us that the toxic trade is still alive and kicking. The rich countries that own the ships don't want the pollution associated with their scrapping, so they shift the problem to poor countries like India or Bangladesh. This is the vulgar reality of toxic trade.

About 100,000 Asians are routinely poisoned this way, and no government has questioned that. It's more economically viable to expose workers to poison than to protect them.

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