Shipbreaking at Alang-Sosiya (India): An ecological distribution conflict

This unequal distribution of benefits and burdens, due to an international and national uneven distribution of power, has led to an ecological distribution conflict. The controversy at the Indian Supreme Court in 2006 over the dismantling of the ocean liner 'Blue Lady,' shows how the different languages of valuation expressed by different social groups clashed and how a language that expresses sustainability as monetary benefit at the national scale, dominated. Shipbreaking in the developing world is not just an externality but a successful case of cost shifting, or else, profit accumulation by contamination.