HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- The United Nation's International Maritime Organization (IMO) has gathered this week in the shipping hub of Hong Kong to draw up new rules on ship recycling.



Ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh are responsible for pollution and health problems.



As the delegates meet in the city's Convention and Exhibition center overlooking the harbor, many of the vast container ships that glide past them will end up 1,500 miles away on the beaches of south east Bangladesh.



India, Pakistan and Bangladesh take 80 percent of end-of-life ships, according to the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, but critics of the U.N. convention being discussed fear the problems of pollution and poor working conditions these countries experience through badly regulated shipbreaking will not be properly addressed.



Lee Adamson, the IMO's spokesperson, is confident the convention will be "a tremendous step forward in terms of health and safety for workers in the industry and for protection of the environment from end-of-life ships. It will set standards where none previously existed."



But those standards don't go far enough for lawyer and head of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, Rizwana Hasan. She has been trying to clean up the dirty and dangerous industry through the law courts since 2003.



Her passion and persistence led to a Bangladesh High Court ruling in March this year finally forcing the government to tighten its regulations of the trade. It has also brought her the Goldman Environmental Prize in April and increasing international attention.



"Now I have an international connection, my opponents are taking me more seriously as a threat," she told CNN.



The main objection of Hasan and the nongovernmental organization Platform on Shipbreaking against the IMO convention is that it fails to deal with the issue of pre-cleaning -- the removal of toxic materials from ships before they are beached and dismantled, which is often done by hand by laborers without any safety equipment.



"Technical details about recycling are being discussed, but nothing about pre-cleaning of ships. It's the core issue. Pre-cleaning is when the majority of in-built toxic material of a ship is removed before being beached in a foreign country. Plus, nothing is being said against beaching -- Bangladesh's beaches have become a natural disadvantage," Hasan told CNN.



Secretary-General of the IMO Efthimios E. Mitropoulos stated in his opening address of conference its aim "is to adopt a new convention on the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships, while balancing the commercial and economic considerations of the industry."



With perhaps too much emphasis on the economic considerations of the industry, Hasan believes the IMO is in effect legalizing shipbreaking in the name of ship recycling.



"They're talking about the responsibility of the ship owners in building new ships, but not about the existing ships and what to do them," said Hasan.



More ships to scrap



The ship breaking industry is booming. Single-hull oil tankers have to be taken off the high seas by 2010, but the financial downturn has also become a major factor. With less trade in goods, container ships are being taken out of service and scrapped, as shipping lines can no longer afford to keep them afloat.



In turn shipbreaking industries fuels local businesses in iron milling and create local markets for parts from ships, including anything salvaged, from doors and tables to nuts and bolts.



Shipping companies often sell their decommission ships to intermediary companies that then sell the ships to breakers yards.



Less scrupulous companies will not ensure the ships are as free of toxic materials as they should be before they are dismantled and even change their flag of convenience so they are not bound by the UN Basel convention on the exporting of toxic material.



In 2006 legal actions instigated by Hasan were successful in turning away two toxic-laden ships from being beached in Bangladesh.



The dangerous job of breaking up ships has migrated from dry docks in industrial countries to other ports across the world, where labor and environmental laws are not strictly upheld.



While still happening on a smaller scale in India, it was because of tighter
What is Hasan's profession? Where is the meeting? Where did the U.N. meeting take place? What are sites of polluting and dangerous shipbreaking?
lawyer and head of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition center Bangladesh
question: What is Hasan's profession?, answer: lawyer and head of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, | question: Where is the meeting?, answer: Hong Kong | question: Where did the U.N. meeting take place?, answer: Convention and Exhibition center | question: What are sites of polluting and dangerous shipbreaking?, answer: Bangladesh