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Able UK bought the Graythorp site on the North bank of the Tees Estuary in 1996, next to its Seaton Meadows landfill site, to create its TERRC recycling facility, initially bringing in and dismantling offshore modules that had reached the end of their lives.

It wasn't until July 2003, when the company signed an 拢11m deal with the US Marine Administration to dismantle 13 former naval vessels that it really hit the headlines.

The 'Ghost Ships' at Graythorp

Environmental groups objected to the US towing its military waste across the Atlantic for disposal and launched a series of media and legal challenges to the move, citing concerns about the impact of Asbestos and PCBs used in ships of that period. They claimed there was a risk of them escaping into the environment, both during transit and during dismantling on Teesside.

They are to be joined at Graythorp Dock in early 2009 by the former French aircraft carrier, Clemenceau, which will also be decommissioned, and the hull of a new oil rig, the Sea Dragon, which will be fitted out in the dock by tenant company, the Tees Alliance Group.

Once all those vessels are in place, the dock will be closed off and drained, to create, at 10 hectares, the largest dry dock in the world (almost twice the size of the previous largest at Nigg Bay, Cromarty Firth and ten times the size of the famous Harland and Wolf dry dock in Belfast).

How to dismantle a ship

The four US Ghost Ships at Graythorp weigh 40,365 tonnes, collectively. Le Clemenceau is 32,700 tonnes.

Most is steel and can be taken apart, melted down at the Corus blast furnace across the river and resold, though if a module, or hull section is still useful, it can be removed in one piece and sold on. For example, Able UK's neighbours, Tees Alliance Group have set up office in the accommodation module of an oil rig brought to the site in 2008 for dismantling.

Ringer crane at Graythorp.

Around 2% of the vessels contain asbestos or PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). That means around 1461.3 tonnes of toxic waste that needs to be dealt with.

Able UK's Development Director, Neil Etherington told 大象传媒 Tees, "Asbestos is handled in a strictly controlled environment which includes personal monitors, full protection and negative air pressure.

"This is done, as a minimum in full compliance with current legislation. The asbestos is isolated and packed and double wrapped in specially designed plastic prior to being placed in secure steel containers."

The containers will then be disposed of at Able UK's Seaton Meadows licensed landfill site, next to Graythorp.