Ship Breaking . Ship Breakers Scrap yards north of the Bombay docks in Mumbai, India by Marco Becher In Mumbai more than 6,000 people work in the shipyards.  Their daily work is trecherous.  They have just 12 weeks to dismantle 20,000 ton freighters, often working with highly toxic materials, in direct violation of the Basel Convention. One morning in Mumbai East, I arrive at the scrap yard.  The noise is deafening. Booming steel, the hiss of the blow torches and metal hammers do not allow for normal conversation. It is stuffy and the air is filled with the stench of oil. Every morning, men come from poor, rural areas in India or Pakistan to work for a daily wage of less than two euros in inhumane conditions. Virtually unprotected by any serious safety code they are extremely vulnerable.  They work on the scrapping of old freighters from around the world (many from the western industrial nations) and the exportation of contaminated steel scrap.  For the corporations who broker the scrapping deals, this is lucrative business. It is not without reason that this business is condemned as a violation of the Basel convention; the working conditions lead to common accidents like; explosions, fires, bone fractures, burns and poisoning. What's more, the workers are exposed daily to noise and, due to inadequate protective clothing, highly toxic substances such as asbestos, lead, oil, arsenic and chromium. But despite the shipbreaking yards of Mumbai being in constant breach of international guidelines this big business which exploits its workers, making them work in terrible conditions on starvation wages, shows no sign of slowing down. Workers in the back of a dismantled ship. Asbestos is found all over the shipyard.  People live surrounded by contaminated water. A portrait of a group steel workers.  Three ship breakers beside a dismantled ship. A woman collecting small metal parts in the shipyard. Surrounded by highly contaminated water, a man brings a petrol barrel ashore. It is noisy, the air is stuffy and full of smoke. Women are forced to collect metal parts to survive.  Wherever you look there are huge plates of iron.  A ship breaker on his way to work. A little boy with a handmade boat made of Styrofoam. An intensive search for something to eat in the human waste.  There is a high demand for energy to cut the steel. The site is littered with countless gas bottles. Cutting steel is dangerous work. A group of workers carrying an extremely heavy iron plate. No protective clothing for working in hazardous conditions. A fire in a dismantled ship. A man working inside a ship. Workers in front of a ship engine. Group of workers carrying an iron plate of several hundred pounds.