A novel approach to estimating resource consumption rates and emission factors for ship recycling yards in Alang, India

Plate-cutting is a critical operation in recovering steel from ships and involve nearly 70% of the total workforce employed for dismantling and recycling of ships in Alang-Sosiya Yards in India. In order to predict and manage health-safety-environment related concerns in ship-recycling, it is essential to have an in-depth knowledge of inputs and outputs of the plate-cutting operation. A novel time-motion study based methodology was developed in this research, based on extensive field data, to estimate these inputs (labour, oxygen and fuel) and outputs (emissions to air as well as deposition of paint and steel on intertidal sediment). An innovative plate cutting- parameter is defined to serve as functional unit for the study. The analysis of inputs showed that 6.2 kg of fuel is consumed per km of plate cut per mm plate thickness. On the output side, results showed that masses of paint emitted to the ambient air and paint deposited on intertidal sediments were 0.9 and 1.34 kg per km of plate cut per mm plate thickness, respectively, and CO2 emissions were estimated as 21.77 kg per km of plate cut length per mm of plate thickness. These findings are being used in policy making and developing amended regulations by the GMB, Government of Gujarat as well as have been found useful by the European Commission. The estimation approach developed and presented in this study can be used by ship dismantling and repairing yards anywhere in the world.