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Drone photo award winners: Far-out landscapes. Ship recycling. Rugs, rugs rugs!

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An old LNG carrier in the final stage of disassembly for scrap metal on the mudflats of the Bay of Bengal, just north of Chattogram, Bangladesh. Breaking a ship like this will take about a year, with a crew of 60 men using blow torches and winches to drag the larger pieces ashore for cutting into smaller pieces. The nearby BSRM smelter melts down the scrap metal from the old boats and produces rebar and rolled steel, while the more valuable non-ferrous metals are sold overseas. The brass from this ship was sold to Hyundai, the ship’s manufacturer in Korea, for use in new ships. From this LNG ship, they will collect a total of 30k tons of metal, plus 2.4k tons of aluminum and 200-300 tons of brass, copper, and stainless steel. Bangladesh has no iron mines and relies on shipbreaking for much of its iron and steel. Shipbreaking requires low wages and high demand for scrap steel. LNG boats are more valuable as they have large quantities of non-ferrous metals that fetch higher prices. Bangladesh had 160 shipbreaking yards before the June 2025 regulation requiring that all new ship purchases after that date be broken using “green methods” requiring international certifications. This forced most of the shipbreakers out of business, and now there are only 10 active shipbreaking yards. The green regulations require a US$4-5 million investment in a thick concrete slab for breaking work, a crane, and toxic liquid storage tanks, as well as higher wages and international certifications. resulting in higher operating costs. This LNG ship was purchased before the June 2025 green deadline. The world’s biggest ship-breaking areas are in Alang, India; #2 is Bangladesh; #3 is Pakistan; and they are all now subject to the same standards. This old-style ship-breaking operation is being done in a rented yard and run by Marine Safety System, but its owner, Mr. Kamal Ahamad, doesn’t want his name or the company’s name mentioned in captions. Kamal works in Bangla

It’s a mega-recycling effort: A crew of 60 men use blow torches and winches to break down a ship that had carried liquid natural gas. Tons of metal parts will be harvested to resell overseas. This photo by George Steinmetz, from the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh, is the overall winner in the 2026 Siena Drone Photo Awards contest. George Steinmetz

George Steinmetz

It looks like a spacecraft that settled gently onto a golden beach.

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