Steel from shipwrecks

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In recent years component parts of historic shipwrecks have started to disappear, with reports of mysterious vessels and scavengers floating around. This phenomenon has been reported in Indonesia, Australia, and the Netherlands. One theory is that the target for plunderers is pre-atomic steel, i.e any steel produced before the nuclear testing era, and therefore free of radioactive particles. Its purer material composition makes it essential in the manufacturing of specialist scientific tools such as MRI machines, and as such is highly valuable. Shipwrecks - oftentimes war graves - are one of the few remaining sources for this material. Materials scientist Anna Ploszajski investigates a murky picture of illegal plundering across the globe.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:09.3	So you've caught me rifling through my kitchen, reflecting on all the metals in our lives, as I often do.
0:15.6	We've got my stainless steel cutlery in here.
0:18.8	We've got my moulded steel of my cast iron pans sitting next to
0:22.8	the steel of my fridge as well. I'm Anna Pajowski. I'm a material scientist and possibly you don't
0:29.3	think about steel as much as I do, but even if you don't, I have got an incredible story for you.
0:35.3	And like many good stories, it starts with a shipwreck.
0:42.4	And they called me up on a Saturday morning and they said the ships are gone.
0:47.9	Wrecks across the world being broken apart. Steel hulls hauled to the surface, just scars left behind
0:55.5	on the seabed.
0:57.4	It's one to say it can't be true.
0:58.7	This is a mistake, it's some old information,
1:01.0	it's a different site.
1:02.2	How is this going on?
1:03.4	And no one noticed.
1:05.1	Rumors swirling about the preciousness
1:07.6	of the looted metals.
1:09.3	There's money to be gained all over the world.
1:12.2	Making money is overruling all ethics.
1:15.4	Rex that are more than just metal and driftwood.
1:18.3	They have taken everything, inclusive the bones.
1:22.5	How to protect them raises deep questions.
	...

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