Toxic waste bound for Thailand on Maersk, MSC cargo ships to return to Europe

Thailand-bound shipping containers allegedly filled with tons of hazardous industrial waste from Albania are set to return to Europe after environmental groups raised the alarm that they were being illegally exported to Southeast Asia.

An AP Moller-Maersk A/S vessel carrying 40 containers of waste is due to arrive in Singapore tomorrow and the suspect cargo will then be sent back to Italy, according to MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA’s marine cargo tracking website , which will carry the shipment back to Europe.

Maersk is working with Singaporean authorities and the shipping line for which it is transporting the containers “to ensure that the containers will be repatriated to Albania in the best possible way,” spokeswoman Summer Shi said.

Thailand races to stop cargo of toxic waste on MSC and Maersk ships

Another 60 containers of suspicious waste currently aboard the Maersk Candor, due in Singapore later this month, will also return to Europe, Shi said.

Officials have been scrambling to stop the shipment since the Basel Action Network, a US nonprofit that tracks the toxic trade, notified Thailand last week that containers it believed to be filled with potentially harmful EAF dust were on their way .

MSC and Albanian authorities did not respond to requests for comment, while Singaporean authorities said they were unable to comment yet. Maersk said none of the containers had been declared to contain hazardous waste, otherwise it would have refused to carry them. Bloomberg News could not independently verify what the ships were carrying. The companies exporting and receiving the containers have not been identified.

Maersk Campton – which had stopped transmitting its location – is now displaying its location and sailing through the Straits of Malacca. Maersk said the vessel had stopped broadcasting its location near Cape Town in South Africa due to security concerns in the region.

Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries have seen an influx of trash from developed countries, from dirty plastic to industrial and electronic waste, which can be laced with toxins. Under the United Nations Basel Convention—a global pact signed by many developed economies—countries must agree to waste heading their way.

Thai authorities are still communicating with other foreign officials responsible for monitoring the shipment, according to an official from the Department of Industrial Works. Thailand will block and not allow hazardous waste to be transported into the country, she said.

The Basel Action Network, which previously alerted Malaysia to illegal e-waste shipments, called for the shipments to be sent back to Albania and the traders involved to be punished.

“It is essential that governments carry out their respective duties under the rules of the Basel Convention,” said Executive Director Jim Puckett. “It’s clear that it’s far too easy for retailers and industry to load containers with materials that would otherwise cost a lot to deal with properly – whether it’s plastic waste, e-waste or toxic dust from steel mills.”

Basel Action Network, together with the environmental group Ecological Alert and Recovery-Thailand, alerted several countries when they learned that more than 800 tons of electric arc furnace dust was being transported by container ships Maersk and MSC. The cargo had been loaded from the port of Durres in Albania in July and was due to arrive in Thailand as its final destination later this month.

Furnace dust, which requires treatment, is a hazardous waste that typically comes from steel scrap recycling and contains toxic metal oxides such as cadmium and chromium, which are harmful to health and the environment.

Photo: container ship Maersk Campton. Photo credit: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

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