According to the Basel Action Network, there’s an estimated 816 metric tons of toxic furnace dust illegally in transit from Albania to Thailand. | donvictorio/Shutterstock
The Basel Action Network alerted Thai and South African regulators to the possibility of illegal shipments containing toxic electric arc steel furnace dust collected from pollution control filters in Albania.
According to a BAN press release, there’s an estimated 816 metric tons of material in 100 short containers, divided between two ships. One container ship carrying an estimated 327 tons of material missed a scheduled Aug. 1 docking in Cape Town, South Africa, and turned off its Automatic Identification System GPS beacon on July 31, following BAN’s warning to South African regulators.
“South Africa reportedly searched diligently for the missing vessel in their waters many hours in vain and as of this release the ship remains at large,” the BAN press release noted.
A second ship is carrying 60 more containers and is currently on a similar path, the organization said. BAN and other environmental groups are calling on South Africa to seize that ship for inspection and for the shipping line Maersk to cooperate.
Under the Basel Convention, hazardous wastes cannot be transported without the approval of the exporting country, the transit countries and the scheduled importing country. The press release noted that none of the three countries were notified in this case.
“Albania was never informed about the export by the exporter and Thailand has not received any notification,” the press release stated. “Transit countries like South Africa have also not been informed prior to shipment.”
Penchom Saetang, director of the Thai environmental group EARTH, said in the press release that “under no circumstances will Thailand accept being the dumping ground for the rest of the world’s toxic industrial waste, electronic wastes or plastic wastes.”
“We call on our government and the government of South Africa to take the necessary actions to stop this offensive trade dead in its tracks,” she added.
BAN also recently tipped off the Malaysian government about e-scrap illegally imported from the U.S.