Environmental Impacts of Ship Breaking and Recycling Industry of Sitakunda, Chittagong, Bangladesh

Abstract

Ship dismantling of Bangladesh is a reason of concern due to its economic values and environmental hazards. This study focuses on the Ship Breaking and Recycling Industry (SBRI) of Bangladesh to assess the environmental impacts. It was done by analyzing the water quality parameters like, Turbidity, Salinity, Electric conductivity (EC), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), pH, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Temperature, Ammonia-Nitrogen, Nitrate–Nitrogen, Phosphate concentrations of inside and surroundings of Ship Breaking Yard. Turbidity ranged from 7.71 to 119 FTU in and 4.07 to 41.74 FTU in inside and outside the ship breaking yard, respectively. Salinity ranged from 0.95 to 14.28 ppt and 0.06 to 0.79 ppt in insde and outside, respectively. Value of EC varied from1.75 to 1280 µs/cm in inside and 0.21 to 15.7 µs/cm in outside, DO ranged from 3.77 to 7.94 mg/l in inside and 1.95 to 5.34 mg/l in outside. TDS value ranged from1280 to 15340 mg/l in inside and 74 to 825 mg/l in outside of ship breaking yard. Ammonia-N value ranged from 0.46 to 7.046 mg/l, Nitrate-N value ranged from 0.10 to 6.9 mg/l and Phosphate value ranged from 0.175 to 4.75 mg/l in the analyzed water sample. Magnitude of environmental alteration by establishment of ship breaking industry was assessed by quantifying Environmental impact value of Study area and the value was found as -93, where ecological parameters value was found -72, Physico-chemical parameters value was -70 and human interest value was found +49 which indicate negative alteration on environment.