Over the past several years, decommissioned U.S warships have been turned into artficial reefs in the ocean by towing them out to sea and sinking them The thinking was that sinking the ship would conveniently dispose of it while providing an artificial reef environment for aquatic life. In reality, some of the sunken ships have released toxins into the ocean and have been costly to decontaminate. Now the US government is taking bids to instead dismantle and recycle ships that have recently been decommissioned (but have not been sunk yet)