E fundit!

20:54 TODAY

Day 12 of the protest/ Citizens continue their calls against Rama and Berisha

The 12th day of the protest against the government and Pri...

Voa: Suspected hazardous waste is returned to Albania

2024-10-27 18:45:00, Aktualitet CNA

In Albania, a ship loaded with 2100 tons of industrial waste suspected of containing harmful substances is expected to arrive at the port of Durrës. The shipment, which is believed to contain waste from the ash of metallurgical chimneys, had left Albania in July of this year for Thailand, which rejected it after the alarm given by the non-governmental organization 'Basel Action Network' based in Seattle, United States United. It is not clear how the Albanian authorities will act in this case, who said that, as long as the case is under investigation, it is up to the Prosecutor's Office to determine the procedures that will have to be followed.

After an odyssey of more than 3 months sailing as far away as Asia, containers of industrial waste suspected to be toxic dust coming from the chimneys of metallurgical plants are expected to arrive in the early hours of tomorrow morning. in the port of Durrës, loaded on a ship leaving from Gioia Tauro in Italy. The dubious dust, known by the acronym EAF, contains high percentages of metals such as lead and chromium and other cancer-causing chemical residues.

The cargo left in July from the Albanian port, as part of an export agreement of the Albanian company "Sokolaj", which had bought the waste from the Kurum company, a steel and iron producer, in the premises of the former metallurgical combine in Elbasan.

Doubts about their dangerous content were raised by the non-governmental organization 'Basel Action Network', after a tip-off it had received from Albania. The Sokolaj company did not declare them as hazardous waste when they were collected in an open environment at the Port of Durrës before being loaded into containers.

For this case, a double investigation is being carried out, by the prosecution of Durrës in Albania and by the office of the European Union against Fraud, OLAF, in Brussels. The alarm given by the "Basel Action Network" made Thailand, the host country, refuse to unload the containers in its ports, while it was announced that the ships would return to Albania.

At that time, in the month of August, the Albanian Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of the Environment came out with a common position where they emphasized that "Albania cannot accept a priori the return of such loads, even more so only on the basis of suspicions and speculations, without the realization of exhaustive analyzes and reliable and verifiable legal evidence".

At the moment, it is not clear what will be done tomorrow with the ship that is expected to arrive in Durrës. According to Albanian authorities contacted by Voice of America, as long as the case is under investigation, it is up to the prosecution to determine the procedures that will be followed. The "Basel Action Network" has called for "the containers to be opened publicly and in the presence of independent groups such as BAN and the samples to be separated so that they can be analyzed in parallel in different laboratories", said the executive director of the BAN group, Jim Puckett.

Today at the entrance to the Port of Durrës, the Democratic Party organized a protest, with the participation of environmental experts. Democratic MP Oerd Bylykbashi pointed the finger of responsibility at the Albanian government: "No one knows what is happening with these toxic wastes that will poison the lives of our citizens, our children. Let no one try to sell this as a history of private bargains. Everyone has their share of responsibility, and the most dangerous is that of those who run this country."

While the environmentalists, casting strong shadows of doubt on the dangerousness of the waste load, declared that they should not be accepted as long as it is not known what exactly they are.