Great Lakes freighters can have a long productive life, with some remaining in service for over a century.

But nothing lasts forever, and when Great Lakes freighters reach the end of their useful life, many of them head to one final resting place.

From TVO in Ontario, field reporter Jeyan Jeganathan brings us the story.

(upbeat rock music) - This is where ships in the Great Lakes come to die.

From freighters like the one behind me, to ferries, this yard has been the final resting place for over 100 vessels.

The Ojibwe, measuring more than 600 feet long and 67 feet wide spent nearly 70 years navigating the lakes.

Soon to be on the chopping block, the S.T.

Crapo, a nearly century-old self-loading cement carrier arriving from the shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

And the Manistee, a self unloading bulk carrier with nearly eight decades of normal mileage, arriving by tow in 2022 from Ohio.

Their final destination, Marine Recycling Corporation, 27 acres of land riddled with pieces of Great Lakes history.

This is the main yard for Ontario's only year-round ship breaking company.

Situated on Lake Erie, just across the border from Buffalo in Port Colborne, Ontario, Marine Recycling Corp sits near the mouth of the Welland Canal, a busy stretch of waterway that connects ships to Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

- There's Ojibway wheelhouse we're driving by, and in the spring it'll go on a barge.

It's going to be a cottage, I guess for someone.

- [Jeyan] Wayne Elliott is a ship breaker, and he's been doing it for more than half a century - We recycle old ships of all types, warships, freighters, tugs, barges, submarines.

We've recycled, actually pretty much everything except an aircraft carrier.

- [Jeyan] Amongst the names of the famous vessels he's recycled, a few stand out.

- Henry Ford the second.

That was a very popular ship for museums and people.

The Henry Steinbrenner was named after former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, named after his father.

- [Jeyan] Marine Recycling Corporation buys these vessels intending to make money on the parts and fixtures they salvage, and the materials that can be recycled.

Coming from around the Great Lakes, vessels can arrive at MRC's shipyard in one of two ways.

Some steam in under their own power, but most are towed.

In the case of the S.T.

Crapo, the Canadian tug Molly M1 and the U.S. tug Manitou brought the aging freighter from its last home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, through lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie to Port Colborne, a six-day journey.

Using a combination of torches, cranes and shears, it could take several months for a freighter like the Ojibwe to end up looking like this.

- The process generally starts with cutting torches.

Parts of the ship that are too high for the shears to reach to start with and are lifting out heavy machinery and engines that are not sheared.

(metal clanging) There are many dangers.

It's a dangerous business.

We're lifting sections of ships up to 100 tons, and on top of that, they're not new ships, so we have to be very careful that lifts won't tear.

Yeah, it just has to be safety first.

- [Jeyan] Marine Recycling Corporation collects portholes, lights, and other scraps from the ships.

But the main haul is steel.

The steel is chewed up into tiny pieces and then loaded onto dump trucks where they're shipped to local steel mills in Southern Ontario.

Many of the ships Wayne and his team recycle have been on the open waters for decades.

For the most part, this yard recycles ships that have spent the majority of their time navigating the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, better known as lakers.

Lakers can remain in service much longer than their ocean counterparts, also known as salties.

The corrosive seawater can do serious damage to a steel ship, which in turn creates a shorter life span.

But with decades of service comes decades worth of buildup, and that's what gets a recycler's attention before they can focus on the steel.

- When a ship arrives under its own power, it has fuel, lubricating oils, waste oils and has all of that aboard.

So that's the first order of business.

- [Jeyan] In North America, the environment wasn't always as protected as it is now.

Wayne has seen the changes firsthand in the three generations his family has been in the industry.

- My dad worked for another family in Hamilton, and started a ship breaking yard in 1959.

I remember as a kid, believe it or not, they used to burn the ships out to get rid of the furnishings.

and even back to the '60s, you know, there was no Environmental Protection Act till 1970.

There was no rules.

So I can remember my dad in Hamilton, the fire chief and the deputy chief were friends as well.

And he would call the chief or deputy and say, okay, the wind is headed towards the skyway bridge.

Okay to light this up?

And they would burn out the accommodation section of ships.

They used to burn copper in those days.

And I always remembered the horrible taste in my throat.

- [Jeyan] North American shipbreaking practices are much cleaner now, but Wayne estimates that around the world 95% of the ship breaking industry contributes to pollution.

And it's not just dirty work.

It also comes with its risks.

Globally, ship breaking has been described as the world's most dangerous job.

In parts of South Asia, the leaders in ship breaking, that title holds true.

According to NGO Ship Breaking Platform, a global collective that monitors environmental harm and human rights abuses, more than 7,000 ships have been scrapped in South Asia since 2009, causing at least 441 deaths and 384 injuries.

- They don't go after the waste first.

In places like Turkey, Bangladesh, India, they use the beaching method where the back end of the stern of the ship, which has many of the pollutants, the machinery spaces, the oil, they're the last thing to be recycled.

- [Jeyan] Marine Recycling operates three other shipyards on Canada's coastlines.

Elliot says his biggest competitors are on the other side of the ocean.

- We're really against towing these lake vessels across the Atlantic Ocean.

At one point, it was about one out of every 20 wouldn't make it.

You know, you can imagine the, you know, the potential for an accident.

It's very difficult to compete when you're the opposite of that and, but you know, so far, so good.

- [Jeyan] At one point, Elliott estimates there were half a dozen ship breakers on the Great Lakes.

But for the last 20 years, Marine Recycling Corporation has been the only full-time ship breaking company in Canada.

- It's a difficult business, on top of everything, it's a gamble.

I remember one year we brought a ship in late January and February 1st, the price of steel scrap dropped $85 a ton.

So we were out $1 million before we touched the ship.

That's the worst part.

- [Jeyan] Despite the challenges that come with ship breaking, Wayne doesn't see himself stopping any time soon.

- We're the most experienced ship breakers in the world, so I'm kind of proud of that.

It's a family tradition.

It's what we do.

We're the best at it.

We, I love the ships, I mean, I always did.

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