Alang
Seawise Giant was dismantled here in 2010.
Guinness World Records ↗Where the giants
come apart.
A ship’s working life ends. Its steel, equipment and story take different paths.
Ship recycling is concentrated in a handful of countries.
India, Bangladesh and Türkiye accounted for 80% of recycled ship tonnage in 2025, according to UNCTAD. The shares change over time, and are measured by gross tonnage. UNCTAD Data Hub ↗
Ship recycling at Alang in May 2023. The vessels pictured are not Seawise Giant.
Neilsatyam / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and converted to WebP; responsive crop.
Seawise Giant’s last stop: Alang
Under the name Mont, Seawise Giant made its final voyage to India. It was dismantled at Alang in 2010, becoming the largest ship ever scrapped according to Guinness. Guinness World Records ↗
The vessel is gone, but its anchor survives in Hong Kong’s Maritime Museum Anchor Plaza. The museum’s account ↗
Read the ship’s complete profile →Turkey: the recycling yards of Aliağa
Aliağa, in İzmir province on Turkey’s Aegean coast, is a major ship-recycling centre. It is an industrial cluster of separate yards, where retired vessels are dismantled and materials recovered. İzmir Development Agency: the Aliağa recycling sector ↗
In its 27 February 2026 update, the European Commission reported ten facilities in Türkiye on the European List of Ship Recycling Facilities. Inclusion applies to individual facilities and is reviewed over time. That update also removed a Turkish yard over shoreline-protection compliance, so the whole Aliağa area should not be described as collectively approved. European Commission: February 2026 update ↗
Selected recycling centers
Explore Alang, Aliağa, Chattogram and Gadani. These examples are not a current ranking of recycling yards.
Historic and shipyard pins indicate approximate areas, not exact berths or navigable routes. Current-vessel pins, when available, show timestamped AIS reports. A missing report does not establish a vessel’s location.
Aliağa
A cluster of ship-recycling yards on the Aegean coast in İzmir province. The pin marks the industrial area, not an individual certified facility.
İzmir Development Agency ↗Chattogram / Chittagong
A major ship-recycling coast north of the city.
International Maritime Organization ↗Gadani
A ship-recycling center on Pakistan’s coast.
International Maritime Organization ↗Shipbreaking is more than cutting steel
Dismantling also means handling fuels, equipment and potentially hazardous materials, with consequences for workers and the surrounding coast. The IMO’s Hong Kong Convention addresses safe and environmentally sound ship recycling. IMO: ship recycling ↗
A map pin identifies an industrial area. It is not a certification of the practices at every facility there.
Watch: inside a cruise ship graveyard
Follow a ship back to its beginning.
Explore where ships are built →Reviewed 9 September 2026. Industry figures describe 2025 recycling. Photography shows Alang in 2023 and does not depict Seawise Giant.