TIRANA, Albania (AP) — A ship suspected of carrying a large amount of hazardous waste was allowed to dock on Friday at Albania’s main port, where its cargo was being unloaded for inspection on the orders of the prosecutor, officials said.
Albania had prevented the Turkish-flagged Moliva XA443A from docking early last week at the port of Durres, 33 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital, Tirana, after a watchdog alerted authorities that it was carrying hazardous waste.
Instead, the ship was kept at an anchorage place away from the port.
The prosecutors then ordered the containers to be seized and stored “at an environmentally" safe place. Once unloaded, the containers are expected to be sent to an agency in Porto Romano, 6 kilometers (4 miles) away, for inspection.
The prosecutor’s office has asked different institutions to conduct lab tests of the cargo.
The Seattle-based non-government organization Basel Action Network, or BAN, which focuses on environmental issues, flagged the ship to authorities in August after receiving information from a whistleblower that the containers on board are suspected to be carrying an estimated 2,100 tons of toxic dust from pollution control filters from the steel industry.
The dust is suspected to have originated at an Albanian company and that it was also illegally smuggled to Albania from neighboring Kosovo and Germany.
BAN said the containers left Durres on July 4 on two Maersk-chartered ships with the intended destination of Thailand. The group said it alerted several transit countries and collaborated with EARTH, a Thai environmental organization, and together raised the alarm about the shipment.
Thailand refused to accept the shipment, asking authorities in Singapore to stop it. The ships then docked at a Turkish port and the containers were loaded on the Turkish-flagged ship, which briefly stopped at the Italian port of Gioia Tauro before going to Albania, BAN said.
The customs documentation stated the containers contained iron oxide, according to local reports.
“The case is under investigation from the Durres prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Tourism and Environment is cooperating for anything that the justice institution asks for,” ministry spokesperson Erjon Uka told The Associated Press on Friday.
Albania's opposition accused the government in August of taking part in illegally trafficking hazardous material.
Prime Minister Edi Rama said in Parliament in September that the shipment’s documents were verified and that iron oxide is “not considered as toxic waste in the European catalogs on which the environmental and customs procedure of our country is based.”
Speaking to a parliamentary commission on Friday, Environment Minister Mirela Kumbaro said the case should not be politically exploited to spread panic.
She urged for calm to allow the investigation to proceed.
The ship, she said, is suspected of carrying hazardous waste but “hazardous waste does not mean toxic” waste, adding that transport companies had declared the cargo consisted of “normal goods” — and that it was only now being described as hazardous waste.
The Seattle-based NGO has called on Albanian authorities to have a public opening and sampling of the containers to ensure transparency of the investigation.
BAN has also said that while Albania is looking to join the European Union and the government has been eager to align its hazardous waste policy with that of the 27-nation bloc, it should ban “the export of hazardous wastes, household wastes, electronic wastes and plastic wastes to developing countries.”
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