Morocco Rejects Toxic Waste Shipment from Albania, Sparking International Refusals

It all starts in early summer 2024. The company Sokolaj buys between 800 and 1,000 tons of waste from an Elbasan company, Kurum international, and immediately resells it to its Croatian subsidiary, GS Minerals, Albanian media report, specifying that the two companies have presented an invoice for the purchase of "iron oxide" whose export is authorized.

102 containers thus leave Dürres for the large Italian port of Trieste, where they are loaded onto two Maersk company ships, the Campton and the Candor. They set sail again and hug the African coasts. But an NGO specializing in the tracking of toxic waste, the Basel Action network (BAN), warns Maersk that the containers would not simply contain iron oxide, but toxic waste, namely electric arc furnace dust (EAFD, according to the English acronym), classified as hazardous waste by most legislations.

These dusts "generally contain a complex mixture of heavy metals, including zinc, lead and cadmium, as well as other elements such as iron oxide, and their storage must be done under very strict conditions," it is specified. Each year, the trade in this type of dust generates 1.4 billion euros, "the price people pay to get rid of it," explains BAN president Jim Puckett. While the NGO asks Maersk to interrupt the course of its ships in order to have the contents of the containers analyzed, the two cargo ships that were near South Africa go silent and dock in Singapore. Warned by BAN, Thailand, the final destination, rejects the containers because they would contain toxic waste.

The shipping company MSC is then tasked with sending the cargoes back to Albania from Singapore. It decides to complete its mission at the end of August. No country wants to welcome this waste. Prime Minister Edi Rama is annoyed by the suspicion of toxicity. "There is no proof that this waste is toxic," he hammers during a question-and-answer session in Parliament, refusing for his country to take back the waste. "If the containers contain hazardous materials, they cannot be shipped to another country without the written consent of the exporting country, Albania, the transit countries, Italy, Malta, Morocco, South Africa and Singapore, and the importing country, Thailand," BAN recalls in an open letter to the Albanian authorities.

"None of these countries have given their consent and, therefore, if it turns out that the containers contain hazardous waste, the shipments constitute an ’illegal traffic’ within the meaning of Article 9 of the Basel Convention. A criminal offense," the NGO will add. On September 26, the Campton and the Candor are divided between Africa and Europe: one in Egypt and the other in Italy.