Ship Recycling: Contribution to Circular Economy and Index of Overall Impact
Keywords:
Economic impact, Environmental Impact, Safety issues, Avoided emissions, Geometric mean, Critical indicators, Progress pathAbstract
Ship recycling (SR) with significant socio-economic benefits contributes to the circular economy by salvaging and reusing valuable materials. However, SR generates toxic substances which end up in coastal water and landfills, increasing environmental risks. The paper considers relevant indicators in various units under five dimensions, namely: Economic (Direct benefits), Economic (Indirect benefits), Economic (Induced benefits), Environment and Safety issues. These dimensions were combined to get unit free index reflecting the overall impact of ship-breaking in the t-th year from the base year. The index also enables assessment of progress across time, identification of critical indicators requiring corrective managerial action and can be expressed as IEconomic impact * IEnvironmental impact * ISafety impact. Increasing trend of and decreasing trend of are signs of an improved SR process. The indices may be computed separately for national, regional, industry and firm/operation levels. Assessment and monitoring of indicators will help India’s efforts to promote green SR, integrating SR with ship building, and emerging as a global leader in SR and pushing the country’s endeavours to be a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy through sustainable recycling practices.
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