HEALTH HAZARDS AND RISKS OF SHIP BREAKING ACTIVITIES IN BANGLADESH: AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT APPROACH

Ship breaking activities are facing both challenges and opportunities for coastal zone management in a holistic manner with increase of its demand of raw materials for re-rolling mills and other house hold purposes inspite of various negative impacts on coastal environments in Chittagong of Bangladesh. An attempt has been taken to know the livelihood and health hazards of workers by ship breaking activities with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) at Sitakunda industrial area of Bangladesh. The present study was carried out based on both primary and secondary data. It is observed from the study that most of the workers come from poverty stricken regions of Bangladesh, where opportunity of employment is least and also found that 59.59% workers are migrated from different districts and 40.40% are permanently living around the Chittagong area. The socio economic condition of the ship breaking workers indicated that most of the workers are engaged on low facilities and vulnerable by health hazards and diseases. Among them Physical, Mechanical, Biological and Ergonomic and Psychological Hazards are observed as the common hazards of workers as well as associated habitants nearest the breaking yards. The EIA for the ship breaking activities are observed as negative (69.46%) and positive impact (30.14%) from the ratio of EIVs in the study area. Among the negative impacts, the biotic factors (21.05%) followed by abiotic (19.14%), social (14.35%) and economic factors (15.31%) are observed in the study area. On the other hand the social (12.92%) and economic factors (17.22%) are observed as positive impacts of EIA in the study area. Considering the positive role of ship breaking in national economy ship breaking activities cannot be stopped. The study also suggested that a sustainable approach should be taken to minimize the negative impacts of ship breaking activities in the coastal zone of Bangladesh.