As you might have guessed from my last post, I see supertankers on a regular basis. Our civilization depends on supertankers, because our civilization depends on oil and supertankers carry oil. What happens to these marine leviathans, these gargantuan products of industry, when they become too old to work any more? No doubt you imagine some sterile high-tech knacker’s yard, a supertanker slaughterhouse, putting these giant ships to rest.
Not at all! They are left, literally washed-up and derelict, on a beach, to be cut up piece by piece by a swarm of barefoot, illiterate workers, until nothing is left but fragments on the sand.
Take a look at this photo-essay from Foreign Policy, drawn to my attention by Wil Wheaton.
