Development of Best Practices for Ship Recycling Processes

6.1 INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 6
DESIGN FOR SHIP RECYCLING
The three components viz., creation, sustenance and destruction in the life span of a
man made system or material is much complex than any of the natural systems or
materials. The design of such a system may be done very intelligently. The
maintenance of the materials can be easy and cheap, whereas the destruction or
disposal may be rather difficult. Manytimes, the man made products fail to deliver the
complete natural life cycle. This issue has already sent serious signals to problems
associated with environmental preservation and safety of life on the earth. In fact this
marks the beginning of recycling oriented studies, and action plans are executed all
over the world in different areas of science, engineering and technology for evolving
effective recycling methodologies. A comprehensive examination of life cycle
activities of a man made product is essential to derive the potential end of life use of
obsolete products and their parts.
By looking at the man made chaos in product design and development, the process of
recycling has to be redefined as an engineering project management tool used to plan
and control the abandonment process of man made products strictly according to the
underlying principles of sustainable development. The design for recycling
philosophy is a tool as well as means to achieve this goal. Alkaner et. al 2 [2006] has
proposed to apply design for dismantling philosophy covering some of the life cycle
stages of ships. Cole [1998] has explained the relevance of life cycle analysis for
environmental assessment of buildings. Though the operational conditions differ big
residential and commercial complexes have similar features as ocean going vessels
when compared with the available outfitting materials, engineering systems and
equipment. Design for recycling concept presented by Cole can be improvised into a
useful tool in recycling of engineering products, including obsolete ships since ship
can be considered as a massive extension of a building.
Besides the conventional shipping operations, the marine activities have been
enhanced by the offshore production and support structures subsequent to demand for
offshore hydrocarbons. Massive nature and complex contents, of these components