Counting the Ships and the Bodies

End-of-life ships are the largest single stream of hazardous waste that rich countries export, and the paper trail is designed to disappear: last-voyage flags of convenience, single-ship shell companies, cash buyers who take title somewhere between ports. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a Brussels-based coalition, exists mainly to make that trail legible — publishing an annual list naming every ship broken and the beneficial owner behind it, so a company cannot claim it did not know. Since 2009 it has recorded 8,221 ships run onto beaches, 480 worker deaths and 520 injuries. In 2024, 409 ships were dismantled globally and 255 of them ended up in South Asian yards; by weight, 85% of scrapped tonnage lands on three beaches, in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Eleven workers died there in 2025 and at least 62 were injured.