Ship carrying hazardous waste ordered to return to its place of origin
The Hong Kong shipping authorities have ordered a shipping company to return 123 containers of hazardous mining waste to Romania – its port of origin – as Hong Kong environmental authorities continue testing the toxicity of the cargo.
On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Department said it had received notice from the carrier on Tuesday that it would return the suspected toxic waste to the Romanian port of Contsanza – but a sailing schedule had yet to be confirmed.
A spokeswoman said that “The EPD is actively following up requirements for the shipping company to determine a specific time frame as soon as possible. The containers cannot leave the relevant cargo terminal before its return to its exporting destination.”
The two consignments of containers ended up back at the Kwai Chung cargo terminal after Malaysian authorities, with the help of tip offs, foiled attempts to unload eight of the containers of suspected toxic waste cargo at Port Klang last month. The cargo vessel OOCL Charleston arrived back in Hong Kong, its last port of call, on Saturday.
The ship had reportedly left Romania with the 2,723 tons of suspected toxic waste in December last year and attempted to offload the cargo for dumping at various Asian ports only to fail repeatedly over the year. This included attempts to dump the toxic waste in Shanghai and Xiamen.
The cargo – labeled as “copper matte” – is believed to contain hazardous substances including arsenic and cadmium. The Hong Kong EPD said the Government Laboratory had been conducting tests on samples of the cargo and that initial results indicated that the main composition of the substances was formed of lead, copper, zinc and iron, which matched those of copper matte.
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Source: South China Morning Post
