TIRANA (AP) – A ship suspected of carrying a large amount of hazardous waste docked yesterday at Albania’s main port, where prosecutors have ordered that its contents be tested.
The Turkish-flagged Moliva XA443A was kept at an anchorage about 1.5 kilometres (km) from the port of Durres, 33km west of the capital, until authorities found a spot out of the port to store the containers, port and prosecutor’s office officials said. The containers are expected to be sent to an agency in Porto Romano.
Ten days ago, prosecutors ordered the containers to be seized and stored “at an environmentally and physically safe place” for monitoring.
The prosecutor’s office has asked different institutions to conduct lab tests of the material in the containers.
The Seattle-based non-government organisation 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 tonnes of toxic dust from pollution control filters from the steel industry.
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 organisation, 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.
