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For almost 40 years, the aircraft carrier Clemenceau plied the world's seas as the flag bearer of the French navy, deploying off troubled coasts from Djibouti in 1974 to Yugoslavia in 1993. Last week the decommissioned 26,000-ton giant — stripped of guns and under an assumed name — was stalled on what the French had hoped would be its last journey, bound for the world's biggest shipbreaking yards on the beaches of Alang in western India. The ship, which is riddled with potentially toxic asbestos and has already been rejected by Greece and Turkey, made no headway for several days as French authorities battled Egyptian efforts to hinder its passage through the Suez Canal. It finally started sailing again late last week, but it is by no means certain that the Indians will ever accept the Clemenceau. "It is a crime to allow asbestos [into India], and those doing so should be prosecuted," says Ramapati Kumar of Greenpeace India. "We will oppose the Clemenceau's entry to the last." The ship is banned from Indian waters until at least Feb. 13.

The fate of the Clemenceau — doomed, perhaps, to sail the seas perpetually like a modern Flying Dutchman — has shed a harsh light on the practice of decommissioning ships. Older vessels, in particular, present a devil's brew of toxins, from asbestos insulation of engines and decks to pcbs, acids and heavy metals in paints and coatings. The problem concerns more than just military craft. The 1960s and '70s were boom years for commercial shipping in European countries, and as those ships age, the need to decommission them has expanded: almost four times as much tonnage was scrapped last year as in 1990, and that number is expected to rise another 20-25% between now and 2012. Once regulations demanding the replacement of all single-hull tankers with safer, double-hulled ships fully bite in 2010, as many as 153 of these 200,000-ton monsters will be dispatched to the ship-knackers' yard. Even pleasure boats can present a threat; among craft posing potential disposal hazards, Greenpeace lists the Pacific Princess, otherwise known as TV's Love Boat.

In some countries, however, shipbreaking represents a business opportunity. Five nations — Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan and Turkey — account for 90% of the world's shipbreaking industry. But increasingly, countries that break up ships are learning that they pay a price: workers' safety standards in the yards are notoriously low, and some countries object to being a dumping ground for richer countries' toxic waste.

The legal framework around shipbreaking, like much in the maritime business, is murky. In 2004, the signatories of the 1989 Basel Convention, which regulates the transport of hazardous waste, agreed that a ship bound for demolition could be considered as such material, and hence is subject to strict rules on its movements. France is a Basel signatory, but its courts have ruled that, because the Clemenceau is "war equipment," they have no jurisdiction to rule whether or not it qualifies as waste. Indian Environment Minister Thiru A. Raja insisted last week that "ships that contain asbestos as part of their structure do not violate the Basel Convention." Shipping businesses themselves are adamant that it is up to the International Maritime Organization (imo), not the Basel Convention, to decide on rules governing any ship's final voyage.

Yet even the U.S., which is not a signatory to the Convention, considered four decommissioned navy vessels as waste in 2003, when they were sent — amid protest by environmental groups — for shipbreaking to a yard in northern England. Those ships are still there, awaiting British government permits for the scrapping to begin.

Environmentalists believe they have found a cause they can win: using the Clemenceau as a precedent to prevent the dispatch of contaminated ships to the developing world. "For us, there is absolutely no ambiguity," says Yannick Jadot, director of campaigns for Greenpeace France. "The Basel Convention has clearly stated that whatever the legal status of the boat, from the moment it's being sent for demolition, it's waste. Period. We're seeing a flagrant disregard for international law."

The question is now before the Indian courts, which have received moving written testimony from Etienne Le Guilcher, 66. In 1961, he was proud to serve as a mechanic on the then newly commissioned Clemenceau. But after 18 years in various navy engine rooms and another 22 as a private-sector heating technician, Le Guilcher is gravely ill with asbestosis. "We think it's completely illegal to send this boat to a foreign country," he tells Time, his conversation punctuated by hacking coughs. "If we don't want to poison France, why should we poison another country?" The Indian Supreme Court will rule on whether to accept the ship in the coming weeks, but that might not be the last word for the industry. For shipping lines and navies, the issue is economic. South Asian shipbreaking, says Carsten Melchiors, secretary-general of bimco, a Copenhagen-based association that represents 65% of the world's merchant fleet, is "an industry we simply can't do without. If politicians decide end-of-life ships have to be recycled, they have to face up to the fact that we have no capacity at home to do so."

In parts of Asia, the economic issue trumps any environmental concerns. Greenpeace India's Kumar claims ship-breakers along Alang's 10-km stretch of muddy beach "violate all environmental and labor laws." Explosions are common as oil residues often remain in the vessels, and workers are ill-equipped, without proper tools or protective clothing. But with an insatiable demand for steel in Asia's booming economies, scrap prices have soared. Scrap now sells as high as $400 a ton in India, compared to roughly $150 a ton in Europe. "In Denmark you almost have to pay to get rid of a ship; in India they have a meaningful value," says Melchiors. He would like the imo to focus on forcing the shipbreaking yards to accept a higher standard of worker safety. Until that happens, though, shipbreaking seems bound to remain a race to the bottom. In Alang, business last year dwindled to 73 ships, down from 333 in 2001-02 as old ships were sent instead to Pakistan, Bangladesh and China — places that Indian ship-breakers contend have lower safety standards than their own. "The Clemenceau means big business for us as a whole; it could even be make or break," says the owner of a major shipbreaking company in Alang. "It is the question of the survival of a whole industry and the thousands it still employs." So whatever happens to the Clemenceau, hundreds of more aging ships are likely headed for Southeast Asia. And Kumar and his environmentalists will be waiting for each and every one of them.

• JAMES GRAFF / Paris
• Are decommissioned ships an economic opportunity — or floating toxic waste?