The South African Government was alerted to a large Maersk container ship carrying about 327 tonnes of hazardous waste containers attempting to dock in Cape Town.
However, the vessel reportedly disappeared after an international watchdog group, the Basel Action Network (BAN) issued the warning, Cape {town} Etc reports.
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The ship, named Maersk Campton, is one of two ships carrying 100 containers of waste that originated in Albania and are en route to Thailand. However, BAN said in a statement that the vessel’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) GPS beacon was switched off on 31 July and failed to make its scheduled docking in Cape Town.
As per the International Maritime Organisation’s SOLAS Convention, the AIS beacon should always be turned on when vessels are underway or anchored and only switched off in the event of imminent danger when the captain of the ship is certain that the continuous signal broadcast compromises the safety and security of their ship.
South Africa searched for many hours but the ship remained at large. ‘We can imagine no other reason for this behaviour other than an effort by Maersk, to avoid arrest or delays due to the likelihood of their ship being involved in trafficking in hazardous waste,’ said Jim Puckett, BAN Executive Director.
‘We call on Maersk to cooperate immediately in assisting the international community in preventing illegal dumping of hazardous wastes.’
BAN further stated that the transport of hazardous wastes without the approval of the exporting country (in this case Albania), the transit countries (such as South Africa) and the scheduled importing country (Thailand) is illegal waste trafficking under the terms of the Basel Convention.
It has reportedly been confirmed that Albania was never informed about the export by the exporter and Thailand has not been notified. Furthermore, transit countries, including South Africa, have also not been notified of the shipment.
While the whereabouts of the Maersk Campton are not known at this time, is it believed to be en route to its next scheduled stop. There are also concerns that the ship might be cloaking its whereabouts and thus could go anywhere in the region.
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The second ship, the Maersk Candor, is reportedly carrying 60 containers of the same waste and is on a similar path. Again, neither Albania, Thailand nor South Africa were reportedly ever informed about the export.
The whereabouts of this ship are not known and authorities are concerned that this vessel is also cloaking its location.
An estimated 816 total metric tonnes on board the two ships in 100 short containers are believed to be toxic steel furnace dust collected from pollution control filters.
‘The Basel Action Network (BAN) who first learned of the shipment, together with the environmental justice organizations, groundWork, Friends of the Earth in South Africa and EARTH in Thailand are calling on the Maersk Candor to be seized by South Africa and will be sounding the alarm throughout South and Southeast Asia calling on governments to intercept the two ships,’ BAN statement added.
‘The shipping line Maersk meanwhile is called upon to immediately halt the shipments so they can be returned to the country of origin – Albania.’
Musa Chamane, Waste Campaigner for groundWork, (Friends of the Earth South Africa), said South Africa could ‘certainly relate’ to the environmental justice of the global waste trade.
‘We demand that this renegade ship and the next one, be intercepted, the containers analyzed here to ensure no other Southern country or ocean be at risk of the dumping of this toxic waste. If they are found to contain toxic waste, they must be returned directly to the sender at their own cost and never be allowed to remain in Africa or dumped in Thailand.’
BAN said the containers could be seized and repatriated back to Albania, should the contents be confirmed to be hazardous waste.
In Thailand, national environmental group EARTH’s director, Penchom Saetang, called on the governments of Thailand and South Africa to ‘take the necessary actions to stop this offensive trade dead in its tracks.’
‘Under no circumstances will Thailand accept being the dumping ground for the rest of the world’s toxic industrial waste, electronic wastes or plastic wastes.’
BAN said the toxic filler could be spread on agricultural fields or dumped in Thailand. ‘A similar shipment of these same types of waste was stopped when it arrived in China earlier this year. Chinese authorities found that shipment to contain more than 8% of toxic lead.’
At the time of this report, the Maersk Campton was located in the Riau Archipelago as per Marine Traffic. According to Vessel Finder, the ship is expected to arrive at the port of Singapore on 18 August. Vessel Finder showed that Maersk Candor is expected to arrive in Singapore on 24 August. However, the ship’s location was last updated more than a week ago.
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