from epSos.de flickr page

by Pierre Torset from his “Shipbreaking” project

“Shipbreaking is a controversial industry.

It used to be a highly mechanized operation, concentrated in industrialized countries. But in order to maximize profits, in the 80s ship owners began sending their vessels to the scrap yards of India (Alang), Pakistan or Bangladesh, where salary, health, safety and working standards are minimal, and workers are desperate for work”

- Pierre Torset

The positive economic and recycling impacts are thus far counterbalanced by the human and labor rights violations, and environmental pollution. Bangladesh’s largest ship-breaking area is directly settled on an open beach (no dry dock) in the Bay of Bengal, near Chittagong, the second largest city in the country.

Children working barefoot on sheet metal, workers breathing asbestos all day long or risking an explosion from fuel residues in the ships, huge amounts of toxic materials dumped directly into the sea on the open beach … these are just some examples of the everyday life of the ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh.
Despite the communication work and legal battles undertaken by NGOs including Young Power and Social Action (YPSA) and Bangladeshi Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) in recent years, a status quo has been adopted by the Bangladesh government that benefits greatly from the situation through taxes and the availability of raw material. Western governments, in the countries where most of the ships originate, have adopted the same attitude.

The fact that many foreign oil tankers and cargo ships have to be decommissioned during future years must also be contributing to this failure to act. Despite the Basel Convention (ratified by Bangladesh and western countries) which limits the transboundary movements of hazardous waste, and the orders taken by the Bangladesh High Court in 2009 about the obligation of those yards to have environmental clearance, shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh are clearly violating the law.

None of the 36 ship-breaking yards in Chittagong have environmental clearance. Shipbreaking yard owners are, of course, aware of the situation and meticulously keep their doors closed to journalists and NGOs, contributing to a lack of information and documentation on this issue.

My work intends to fill this gap, in order to better understand what is happening in these ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh. This work was made possible through several weeks of negotiation with people involved in the maritime trade, shipbreaking yard managers and local foremen, by using unofficial access and cooperating with fishermen, by reaching the shipbreaking yards by night when security is low.

YPSA, the main NGO in Bangladesh that deals with this issue, estimates that about 100,000 workers worldwide are employed in shipbreaking in Bangladesh.

Thousands have already died over the last 20 years due to accidents (excluding those maimed or dead from diseases caused by the toxic fumes and materials workers are exposed to). Greenpeace, FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights) and ILO (International Labour Organisation) have now created along with YPSA an NGO “Platform on Shipbreaking” to raise awareness about this industry they consider among the deadliest in the world.

by Ollie Woods from “Red star, black gold” project on lensculture

“I had come to a remote part of north eastern China to photograph one of the last working steam railways left in the world”

- Ollie Woods

The railway is in a vast open cast coal mine in Inner Mongolia. Many of the trains are based on an American design from the 1920s, which were still being built in China until about a decade ago. But by spring this year all the trains in the mine were finally scrapped, passed over as inefficient and costly, and replaced by modern dump trucks.

The mining town is called Zhalai Nouer.
The town is rich in coal, and its main landmark is a massive open cast coal mine, nearly four kilometers long, called Lutien mine. There were still around forty steam trains working day and night in the mine when I was there. But in the past, more than double that number had operated in the pit.

The mine is built as a series of steps, with track that runs in rings leading down to the bottom. In recent years the mine had become an attraction for railway enthusiasts from all over the world: Australia, South Africa, Germany, Britain and America. Now they were lamenting the imminent passing of the trains. “It’s the last great steam show left on earth,” one of them told me mournfully.

by Sergey Gorshkov from his blogpost

“Our fathers had been poisoned Arctic. In our best to leave it to our children a little bit cleaner”

- Sergey Gorshkov

If you arrive on the Arctic coast of Russia, the first thing you meet – the endless mountains of debris and loose rusty barrels to gorizonta – is above all a giant dump. However, not only military – any attempt at  industrialization polar territories accompanied by horrific pollution.
Wrangel Island, has called a maternity home to polar bears. In addition to polar bears, here in large numbers are encountered polar owl, white geese, dark geese, musk oxen, arctic foxes, walruses and other animals. Now the preservation of natural complexes of the island is provided by the lack of population and geographical isolation. However the organization of State Natural Reserve Area was trying to learn different methods: the factory was established, the separation of the reindeer farm, support a military airfield and base defense.
Every year on the island were imported tons of fuel, which sheds a significant amount of land and coastal waters, heavy equipment, tons of equipment for work, home and food supply of the inhabitants of the village with a population of 200 people. Nothing, except for personal property departing the mainland from the island were not taken out – all the waste, household garbage and dilapidated equipment left on the landfill on the island. Wrangel Island is no exception, but merely an example of the development of North.
Mostly empty barrels were exported in part to the scrap metal: all the same ships that deliver goods to the north, go back empty. But even the removal of scrap unprofitable: for release at least zero, barrels initially be compressed on the shore, and there is usually no press.
Wrangel Island scrap is concentrated on the southern coast, in places where previously there were different organizations: the airport, the base defense, the meteorological station Hydrometeorology, frontier and settlement Ushakovskoe.
Currently, most of the barrels and tanks deteriorated. They left tens of tons of fuel (petrol, oil, diesel fuel). From corroded barrels resets these substances on earth, which leads to contamination of the protected territory. Part of the barrels were stored and thrown to the sea and spits on the banks of rivers. Blurring of the braid and the strengthening storm leads to washout of barrels in the sea, their future is to be thrown on the shore in various parts of the island.

In addition to drums and industrial waste, the Russian Arctic and objects contaminated by poopasnee: all along the Northern Sea Route in an abandoned state is home to hundreds of radioactive power sources – RITEGs used in Soviet times to supply navigation equipment, such as lighthouses. The fuel they use strontium-90, the deadly isotope, the danger remains about a thousand let. On the Wrangel Island similar to the radioactive power source was washed away by sea in the Bay of Rogers. On its own to remove the sources is not possible, it is also extremely dangerous. To search and removal of RITEGs required diving operations and helicopter rental. In 2008, wrote a letter to RosTekhNadzor, but no response to letters sent out had been received. In the case of destruction of housing RITEG it’s possible radioactive contamination of the protected marine area.

In 2004, Wrangel Island was given the status of World Natural Heritage with one condition – clear the area of technical metal and debris. Allowed to leave only a small portion of historic sites is not polluting the protected area, as monuments to the Arctic. Reserve staff on measures of forces and capabilities have been working on cleanup – removal of empty barrels to the storage site. Part of the barrels are exported Associated helicopter flights to the mainland, but it’s a drop in the ocean.

Their funds from the reserve is not enough. Reserve staff are ready to prepare a base, develop technology, to start pressing and storage of scrap metal for further exports, but no press. There are only a small tractor, but it is already an achievement. But most importantly, that the Wranglar island not even includedto the goverment’s programme of cleaning Artic.

by Yann Gross from his “Agreste” project

“The story is taking place in the north-east brazilian countryside area.
This place has a remainder of the Mata Atlantica, which was once the second largest
forest of South America and which has only about 6% left of its original size.
The rivers taking their source in these wooded hills can supply water to the villages
nearby. However, deforestation is accelerating, and water begins to fail.
I was interested to talk about the everyday life of the people living there, small
stories which are taking place in this remote area”

- Yann Gross

by Peter Somogyi-Tóth

“The rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in Western Hungary caused a massive flood of toxic sludge, affecting fields, canals and seven towns near Ajkai, 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest. This sludge, to date responsible for the death of seven people and over 120 injuries, is highly toxic and contains a mixture of heavy metals”

- Greenpeace

by Alex Marttunen, Environmental Photographer of the Year 2010 (EPOTY) award winner

by Jane Fulton from her “Crude Awakening” project

“Living on the shores of Lake Michigan, I am acutely aware of the disastrous toll the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has taken on all forms of life, especially as our beaches opened to the 2010 swimming season. This environmental, social and economic catastrophe highlights a much larger problem that has inflicted untold suffering as we exploit the earth’s resources worldwide. We are all responsible for leading lives that create demand for unsustainable energy. We are also all responsible for the solution and we must work together to protect the balance of life”

- Jane Fulton

by Kris  Krüg from his flickr

“The blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico should not look like this. As of today it does.
A boat wades through the oily waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The water has an iridescent rainbow sheen from the dangerous dispersant used to break up the crude oil spill”

- Kris  Krüg