Toxic Waste Bound for Thailand on Maersk, MSC Cargo Vessels Set to Return to Europe

(Bloomberg) — Shipping containers bound for Thailand allegedly filled with tons of hazardous industrial waste from Albania are now slated to return to Europe, after environmental groups sounded the alarm they were being illegally exported to Southeast Asia. 

An A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S ship carrying 40 containers of the waste is due to arrive in Singapore tomorrow, and the suspect cargo will then be sent back to Italy, according to the marine cargo tracking website of MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA, which will be transporting the shipment back to Europe.

Maersk is working with Singaporean authorities and the shipping line for whom it’s transporting the containers “to ensure that the containers will be repatriated to Albania in the best way possible,” spokeswoman Summer Shi said. 

A further 60 containers of suspected waste currently on board the Maersk Candor, which is due in Singapore later this month, will also head back to Europe, Shi said.

Officials have been working to stop the shipment since Basel Action Network, a US-based nonprofit that tracks toxic trade, last week informed Thailand that the containers it believes are filled with potentially harmful electric arc furnace dust were heading its way.

MSC and Albanian authorities didn’t respond to requests for comment, while Singaporean authorities said they weren’t able to comment yet. Maersk said none of the containers were declared to contain hazardous waste, otherwise it would have declined to carry them. Bloomberg News couldn’t independently verify what the ships are carrying. The companies exporting and receiving the containers haven’t been identified.

The Maersk Campton — which had turned off its location transmission — is now displaying its location and sailing through the Malacca Strait. Maersk said the vessel had stopped broadcasting its location as it neared Cape Town in South Africa due to security concerns in the region.

Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries have seen an influx of trash from developed countries, from dirty plastic to industrial and electronic waste, which can be laced with toxins. Under the United Nations Basel Convention — a global pact signed on by many developed economies — countries need to give consent for waste headed their way. 

Thai authorities are still communicating with other foreign officials responsible for monitoring the shipment, according to an official at the Department of Industrial Works. Thailand will block and not allow the hazardous waste to be transported into the country, she said.

Basel Action Network, which has previously alerted Malaysia to illegal e-waste shipments, called for the shipments to be sent back to Albania and the traders involved punished.

“It is critical that governments fulfill their respective duties under the Basel Convention’s rules,” Executive Director Jim Puckett said. “It is clear that it’s far too easy for traders and industry to just load up containers with materials that would otherwise cost a lot do deal with properly – whether its plastic wastes, electronic wastes, or toxic dusts from steel mills.”

Basel Action Network, along with environment group Ecological Alert and Recovery-Thailand, alerted multiple countries when they learned that more than 800 tons of electric arc furnace dust were being transported by Maersk and MSC container ships. The cargo had been loaded up from Albania’s Durres port in July and was due to arrive in Thailand as the final destination later this month. 

The furnace dust, which requires treatment, is a hazardous waste product that commonly comes from recycling scrap steel and contains toxic metal oxides like cadmium and chromium that are harmful to health and the environment. 

–With assistance from Yongchang Chin and Pathom Sangwongwanich.

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