The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh are jointly implementing a project entitled “Safe and Environmentally Sound Ship Recycling in Bangladesh – Phase I” (in short SENSREC Project – Bangladesh).
The project, aimed at improving the safety and environmental standards within the country’s ship-recycling industry, consists of five work packages covering the following:
- Two studies assessing the economic and environmental impact of the ship recycling industry in Bangladesh;
- An assessment of the prevailing conditions and needs for environmentally sound hazardous waste management, including the compilation of a hazardous waste inventory, hazardous waste assessment report and the preliminary infrastructure design and site selection for a hazardous waste storage, treatment and disposal facility;
- Recommendations on strengthening the Government’s One-Stop Service, in which all the various ministries with a responsibility for ship recycling (e.g. Industries, Environment, Labour, Shipping) offer a single point of contact for related matters;
- A review and upgrade of existing training courses on occupational health, safety and environmental issues and piloting of the new training material; and
- The development of a detailed project document for a possible follow-up project to implement the recommendations of phase I.
In the long term, the project will assist the industry to eventually meet the requirements of the Hong Kong International Convention on the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009 (the Hong Kong Convention), so that the Government of Bangladesh may be in a position to accede to the Convention.