In Bangladesh, the SBI is flourishing by taking advantage
of easy beaching and an elevated domestic demand for
steel and recoverable materials from it. Many, not all, of
the breakers have become more environmentally and
managerially efficient as a result of their effort to comply
with emerging local and global standards of SBI. Bangladesh’s
SBI experienced changes in the past two decades.
An increase in the average ship size was observed, indicating
the enhancement of capacity for breaking larger
ships. Oil tankers and bulk carriers have been preferred by
Bangladesh’s SBI because of their higher steel content,
which is also indicative of an elevated dependency of
domestic steel industry on SBI. Interestingly, ships dismantled
in Bangladesh were younger (27 years) on an
average compared to the rest of the world (30 years). Our
results on the weights, types and numbers ships of imported
Fig. 6 Comparison of the
lifespan distribution of
dismantled ships between
Bangladesh and the rest of the
world (ROW) for a total of
5 years
Fig. 7 Yearly comparison of
the lifespan distribution of the
dismantled ships in Bangladesh
J Mater Cycles Waste Manag (2015) 17:72–83 81
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for dismantling suggested that Bangladesh is destined to
become more popular as a ship breaking destination
gradually. In this paper, we have tried to point out the
characteristics of SBI in Bangladesh. A primary driver of
the industry is the flow of materials from ship breaking to
the national economy. In our ongoing research, we are
conceiving a more comprehensive understanding of the
material flows in Bangladesh with particular reference to
SBI. We found that the SBI contributes substantially to the
domestic steel industry and substantial reuse of the
recovered materials [38]. We also found a smaller amount
of export flow from this industry. We faced serious problems
in data acquisition. Even though the needed data was
obtained through our field survey, good record keeping and
its disclosure will contribute to improving the SBI both
from environmental and social perspectives. Our results
will develop a better understanding of the characteristics of
SBI in Bangladesh.