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Albania faces international scrutiny over suspected toxic waste trafficking
Story Highlights
- Discovery of 800 tons of hazardous materials exported from Durres port, likely originating from outside Albania, sparks investigations, raises concerns over transparency and compliance with international law.
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TIRANA, Aug. 30, 2024 – The discovery that 800 tons of industrial waste, suspected to contain hazardous toxic substances, were exported from Albania’s port of Durrës — likely originating outside the country — has sparked a major international investigation, raising serious concerns about Albania’s potential role in global waste trafficking and the apparent failure of government oversight.
The Durres Prosecutor’s Office in Albania and the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, in Brussels, say they are both investigating 100 containers recently seized in Singapore, originating from the port of Durres.
The Basel Action Network (BAN), a U.S.-based NGO, was the first to raise the alarm on the toxic cargo and believes this was the latest of many shipments. Its experts believe Albania has been exploited to remove hazardous toxic waste not only from within the country but from the wider region, with the final destination being East Asia.
Every three or four months, a material suspected to be toxic dust known as EAF, short for Electric Arc Furnace dust, which is emitted from a metallurgical factory chimney, has been exported from the port of Durres, according to BAN, which cited a whistleblower from the port of Durres as its source.
“The first person who alerted us was an individual who observed the transport of toxic waste in the port of Durres. He was aware of where the toxic dust was going and had documents showing the path of the shipments,” BAN representative Jim Puckett told VoA, adding that it conducted its own research and concluded that such shipments are regularly made from the port of Durres. “We were able to confirm that the containers reported by the whistleblower, their identification numbers, we verified through the Google Earth app, and also through Google Earth’s satellite images, we located their exact location by comparing them with the lights and roads of the port. We have three data sources obtained at three different times. We suspect this happens every three or four months.”
The shipment’s paperwork shows the exported ash from the port of Durres belongs to Sokolaj, an Albanian company, which had labeled it as having purchased it from the Kurum company’s factory in Elbasan, which produces steel and iron.
In a statement, the Turkish-owned Kurum said on Aug. 21: “Kurum International has never exported hazardous waste, and in this case, this shipment in question was not exported by Kurum International.”
Puckett pointed out that “this material may originate from other European countries,” adding that the frequent export of this material from Durres raises suspicions that it could not come only from the Kurum factory, as this factory is not large enough to produce such quantities of EAF dust.
-International waste trafficking likely source-
The issue has now drawn massive attention from local and international media after there were attempts to minimize and hide the magnitude of the dangerous waste passing through Albania’s largest seaport, where it was kept in the open air and could have contaminated the port and surrounding areas, experts said.
Moreover, experts have said there were efforts to make Kurum the scapegoat of a scheme that is not its own doing. A diplomatic source told the Tirana Times that deflecting the issue onto Kurum was a well-orchestrated attempt to find a scapegoat, as Albania faces the possibility of being involved in international waste trafficking, with suppliers coming from outside the country.
Experts also point out that the state watchdogs failed in their duties, either due to weakness or corruption, as an alarming 800 tons of waste were loaded and transported without the port authorities in Durrës having any information about what was being shipped. This reflects a complete lack of transparency from the government and the responsible institutions, including those tasked with law enforcement.
The Albanian government announced that it was unaware of the situation and had not licensed any company for the international transport of hazardous waste.
However, according to opposition MP Agron Shehaj, Sokolaj, the company transporting the 800 tons of hazardous waste, holds a government-issued license allowing it to do so.
Now there are fears that the discovery of the trafficking of 800 tons of toxic substances is likely just one episode, part of a much larger and longer trafficking network in place for years.
-A global trail-
According to the data provided by the whistleblower to the Basel Action Network, the latest case was in July, when suspicious material was first loaded into containers at the port of Durres. After leaving the port of Durres, the containers traveled to the port of Trieste in Italy. There, the containers were loaded onto two other transport ships belonging to the Danish company Maersk. From the Italian port, along the Mediterranean Sea and the coast of Africa, the goods were initially sent to Singapore, from where they would continue their journey to their final destination, Thailand.
The Danish shipping giant Maersk transported the containers, telling the media they decided to transport the goods because the accompanying documentation stated that it was non-hazardous.
“If it had been declared as containing hazardous waste, Maersk would have refused to transport it. Due to the speculation about its content, Maersk has cooperated with the Singaporean authorities… Our ship Campton has unloaded the containers in Singapore, and they are now being repatriated to Albania by another company,” the shipper said in a statement.
Another argument mentioned by The Basel Action Network for suspicions about the transport of this material from the port of Durres is the penultimate shipment that went from Durres to China. Since April, according to BAN Executive Director Jim Puckett, this shipment has been blocked in a Chinese port near Hong Kong.
“This shipment departed from the same port. According to our whistleblower, the Chinese have rejected it. There are 115 containers from Albania that are still blocked in China. The Chinese have analyzed the material and found high levels of metals, including over 8 percent lead,” Puckett said.
-Albanian government says it won’t take waste back-
Two Albanian government ministries over the weekend said in a joint statement that “Albania cannot accept the return of such cargoes solely on the basis of suspicions and speculations, without exhaustive analyses being conducted.”
If it is confirmed that the material is the ash that comes from the chimneys of metallurgical factories, then the consequences, according to BAN, are severe for people’s health and the environment, but there could also be political consequences.
-Dangerous substances might have contaminated port-
EAF dust contains high percentages of metals like lead and chromium and other chemical residues that cause cancer.
In the whistleblower’s photos for the July case, according to Puckett, piles of ash can be seen left in the open environment at the port of Durres. Similar photos are also visible in the Google Earth app. One such photo, taken on Oct. 11, 2023, shows piles of ash within the port of Durres.
“This is hazardous waste if not handled properly. You wouldn’t want to keep this near children or people with chronic illnesses,” Puckett said.
-Violation of international law-
The political consequences, if the claim of the American organization is confirmed, could be a violation of the Basel Convention, a United Nations treaty that regulates the trade of hazardous waste. The signatory countries of the convention, one of which is Albania, are not allowed to send toxic waste to another country without first obtaining approval from the host country.
The Albanian government dismissed accusations over the weekend that it had not acted on the suspected cases.
In a joint statement by two Albanian government ministries, it is said that Albania is classified as a safe country, as it has been verified and certified in several international inspections over the years.
Puckett told VoA he understands that customs may have been misled by the exporters, who may have declared it as non-hazardous material, but he added: “It is very suspicious how this can happen right under their noses. I am sure this is a larger story involving many exports that have not been noticed before and that may have originated somewhere in Europe, or even in other countries. I do not believe this story is over yet.”
