Ship-Breaking, E-Waste and India

In one line

A ship sailing to a breaking yard and a container of used computers going for repair are the two great modern evasions of Basel, both turn on whether the thing is waste at all, and India has decided both in its own courts and its own rules.

The threshold question

Everything in this chapter is one question in two forms. Is it waste?

Basel article 2(1) says waste is anything disposed of, intended to be disposed of, or required to be disposed of by the provisions of national law. If the answer is no, the Convention does not apply, no notification is needed, no consent is required, and the movement is ordinary trade.

So the manoeuvre is always the same: describe the thing as something other than waste.

• A vessel sailing under her own power is a ship, not a cargo of scrap.
• A container of old computers is second-hand equipment for reuse, not electronic waste.
• Drums of used oil are lubricating oil, which is what the importers said in Research Foundation.

The legal answers turn on intention, on evidence, and on who bears the burden of proving which.

Ship-breaking

The facts. A large ocean-going vessel at the end of her life contains steel worth recovering and, distributed through her structure, asbestos lagging, polychlorinated biphenyls in cabling and paint, heavy metals in coatings, residual fuel oil and sludge, and a variety of other hazardous materials. Breaking her recovers the steel. Doing it safely requires containment, trained labour and disposal capacity. Doing it cheaply requires a tidal beach, a workforce paid little and a gas cutter.

Alang in Gujarat is the largest ship-breaking location in the world, with Chattogram in Bangladesh and Gadani in Pakistan. The industry supplies a large share of India's secondary steel and employs many thousands of workers.

The legal problem. A ship sails to the yard. At the moment she leaves her last port she is a functioning vessel, not a consignment of waste, and the State of export never receives a notification. By the time anyone asks, she is on the beach in the State of import. Basel's procedure assumes a cargo, and a ship is not one.

The international responses.

• The Basel Conference adopted technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of the full and partial dismantling of ships, and decided that a ship may become waste under article 2 while still being a ship under other international rules.
• The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009, adopted under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization, requires an inventory of hazardous materials on board through the ship's life, surveys and certification, authorisation of recycling facilities, a ship recycling plan for each vessel, and reporting. It entered into force on 26 June 2025. India ratified it in 2019, well before it was in force.
• The European Union Ship Recycling Regulation requires ships flying member State flags to be recycled only at facilities on a European list, which some Indian yards have joined.