Albania stops a ship suspected of harboring massive amounts of toxic waste from docking

TIRANA, Albania — Albania prevented Monday a ship suspected of transferring a huge amount of hazardous waste from docking at Tirana's main port, officials said, after a watchdog group alerted authorities.

The Turkish-flagged Moliva XA443A ship was kept about a mile away from the port of Durres, 33 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital. Prosecutors ordered the containers to be seized and stored ''at an environmentally and physically safe place'' to monitor.

The Seattle-based Basel Action Network nongovernmental organization, or BAN, which focuses on environmental issues, said it flagged the ship to authorities in August following a whistleblower's note that its ''102 containers'' are suspected of carrying ''an estimated 2,100 total metric tonnes of ... waste pollution control filter dust from the steel industry.''

BAN said the ''massive shipment'' first left Durres on July 4th, 2024, on two Maersk chartered ships with the ''intended destination of Thailand.'' The group said it also alerted several transit countries and collaborated with EARTH, a leading Thai environmental organization, 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 shipment was loaded on the Turkish-flagged ship, which briefly stopped at the Italian port of Gioia Tauro before going to Albania, BAN said.

The customs documentation stated the containers harbored iron oxide, according to local reports.

Albanian opposition accused the government in August of taking part in illegally trafficking hazardous material. Prime Minister Edi Rama said in Parliament in September that the shipment's documents were verified and that iron oxide is "not considered as toxic waste in the European catalogs on which the environmental and customs procedure of our country is based.''

Jim Puckett, BAN's head, was in Durres when the ship arrived and called on authorities to have a public opening and sampling of the containers to ensure transparency. The group also wants to analyze the samples in "different labs in parallel.''

He told reporters they suspected the toxic steel furnace dust was collected from pollution control filters from an Albanian company and also illegally smuggled from Kosovo and Germany.

''It is up to the Albanian government to find a solution for their elimination,'' Puckett said.

Puckett told The Associated Press that government officials said the prosecutor's office in Durres has taken control of the ship at the anchorage and that he can liaise with them to get the needed samples.

''We very much hope the wastes will be properly sampled and analyzed with third parties ... so that the public can trust in the result,'' a BAN statement said.

Albania is looking to integrate into the European Union and the government has been keen on aligning its hazardous waste policy with that of the 27-nation bloc, banning "the export of hazardous wastes, household wastes, electronic wastes and plastic wastes to developing countries."

There has been no immediate comment from the Ministry of Tourism and Environment.