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However, according to a waste stream analysis conducted by Werner Hoyt, a ship recycler in Weed, Calif., the Oceanic is carrying 250 tons of asbestos and 210 tons of toxic PCBs—chemicals that were used as fire retardants in paints, cabling, gaskets and flooring until they were outlawed by the EPA in 1978. Hoyt estimates that if sold for scrap the Oceanic's steel could earn Global Shipping a minimum of $8.5 million.

Environmentalists contend that ship owners don't always flag their plans for scrapping contaminated ships. In 2006 Norwegian Cruise Lines told inspecting authorities in Bremerhaven, Germany, that their old, damaged liner, the SS Norway (now the SS Blue Lady), was headed to Malaysia for restoration. She ended up on the beach in India instead, shortly after being sold to Bridgend Shipping, a Liberian company, for just $10, according to a sales receipt. Watchdog groups like India's Ban Asbestos Network claim that Bridgend Shipping was acting as a "proxy buyer," enabling Norwegian to avoid responsibility for costly decontamination while negotiating the ship's real price off the record. AnneMarie Mathews, spokeswoman for Norwegian Cruise Lines, would not comment on why the Blue Lady was sold for $10, citing a lack of information. "We sold the [Blue Lady] a long time ago," Mathews said. Once the longest liner in the world, the Blue Lady is currently being dismantled at Alang, with an estimated 1,200 tons of asbestos onboard.

Global Shipping, the current owner of the Oceanic, is a subsidiary of Global Marketing Systems, a firm that arranges the scrapping of more than 100 ships a year, and environmentalists are worried the company is just weathering the legal storm before sending the ship for dismantling. The reason they expect it to go to Alang is because Global's CEO, Anil Sharma, has a brother there with a ship-breaking plot. "Everybody in the business knows that Anil Sharma wants to scrap this ship," says Jim Puckett, coordinator of the Seattle-based Basel Action Network, a group working to stop the international trade of toxic materials. "It's in the hands of guys who make all their money scrapping ships."

Puckett's group takes its name from the Basel Convention, adopted in 1992 and signed by 170 countries, including India but not the United States. The convention prohibits the international trade of hazardous materials, such as the asbestos, heavy metals, PCBs and other toxic substances aboard almost all old ships. The rules haven't stopped scrapyard workers in Asia from being exposed to contaminants. In 2006 a committee assembled by the Indian Supreme Court found that one in every six workers in Alang shows symptoms of asbestosis—a chronic inflammation of the lungs caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos fibers.

Based on interviews with workers, the International Federation for Human Rights estimates that between 48 and 60 workers die in accidents in Alang every year. In addition to worker safety concerns, Indian environmental groups claim that their country has been the dumping ground for foreign waste for decades.

"These are toxic chemicals," says Gopal Krishna of the Ban Asbestos Network of India. "But the moment these things enter Indian territory they become nontoxic."