COLOMBO – Sri Lanka has shipped back to Britain containers of waste that the government said were brought to the island in violation of international laws governing the shipping of hazardous materials.
The 21 containers, holding up to 260 tonnes of rubbish, arrived by ship at the capital’s main port between September 2017 and March 2018, customs officials told AFP, adding that they departed the country yesterday.
They were meant to carry used mattresses, carpets and rugs, but also contained hospital waste, said the officials.
“The shipper agreed to take back these 21 containers,” said customs spokesman Sunil Jayaratne today.
“We are working to secure compensation from those responsible for getting the containers into the country.”
The department did not reveal the type of hospital waste, but previously, illegally imported containers had included rags, bandages and body parts from mortuaries, said authorities.
Another 242 containers from Britain, which the government said contained illegal garbage in violation of international laws, remain abandoned at the same port and at a free-trade zone outside Colombo.
They arrived in 2017 and 2018.
The government is engaged in legal action against the shipper to have the 242 containers removed from the country.
A Sri Lankan investigation last year into nearly 3,000 tonnes of illegally imported hazardous waste found that the importer had reshipped about 180 tonnes to India and Dubai in 2017 and 2018.
Several Asian countries, sick of being the wealthy world’s rubbish dump, have in the last two years turned back containers of waste from foreign shores. – AFP, September 27, 2020
