Ship carrying hazardous waste ordered to return to Romania by Hong Kong authorities
The cargo vessel OOCL Charleston arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday carrying mining waste
A shipping company has heeded demands to return 123 containers of hazardous mining waste to Romania – its port of origin – as Hong Kong environmental authorities continue testing the toxicity of the cargo.
The Environmental Protection Department on Wednesday said it had received notice from the carrier on Tuesday that it would return the suspected toxic waste to the Romanian port of Contsanza – but a sailing schedule had yet to be confirmed.
“The EPD is actively following up requirements for the shipping company to determine a specific time frame as soon as possible,” a spokeswoman said. “The containers cannot leave the relevant cargo terminal before its return to its exporting destination.”
The two batches of containers ended up back at the Kwai Chung cargo terminal after Malaysian authorities, with the help of tipoffs, foiled attempts to unload eight of the containers of suspected toxic waste cargo at Port Klang last month. The cargo vessel OOCL Charleston arrived back in Hong Kong, its last port of call, on Saturday.
According to an investigation by Malaysian newspaper Oriental Daily and Hong Kong media outlet HK01, the ship left Romania with the 2,723 tonnes of suspected toxic waste in December last year, and attempted to offload the cargo for dumping at various Asian ports only to fail repeatedly over the year. This included attempts in Shanghai and Xiamen.
