Seattle, USA. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Bangkok, Thailand. May 22, 2025. Recent government seizures of intermodal containers containing illegal shipments of electronic waste (e-waste) from the United States to Thailand and Malaysia have taken place, as a result of a renewed campaign of citizen alerts known as "Operation Can Opener".
Read MoreThe European Commission has added shredded battery waste, known as ‘black mass’ to its list of hazardous waste materials.
Read MoreFMT takes a closer look into e-waste, why some are concerned, and what others see as potential benefits.
Read MoreAfter 12 weeks have transpired since the arrival of the Turkish ship Moliva, containing 102 containers of suspected toxic waste, the Basel Action Network (BAN) and Milieukontakt of Albania denounced the complete silence from the government and the apparent lack of any progress on the case from the Government of Albania and the Durres Prosecutor's office.
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Read MoreOver 80 acres of land that the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (GARCC) salvaged after the demolition of the Agbogbloshie scrapyard and the Onion Market four years ago are under siege.
Read MoreSeattle, USA, Durres, Albania. November 8, 2024. A Turkish-flagged ship, Moliva XA443A, suspected of carrying toxic waste, was permitted to dock at Albania's main port on Friday.
Authorities initially barred the vessel from entering Durres, located 33 kilometers (20 miles) west of Tirana, after a watchdog organization raised concerns about its cargo.
The Seattle-based Basel Action Network (BAN), an environmental NGO, had flagged the ship to Albanian authorities in August, following information from a whistleblower.
The group suspected the ship was transporting approximately 2,100 tons of toxic dust, a byproduct from pollution control filters in the steel industry.
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An estimated 2,100 total metric tonnes of suspected hazardous waste packed in 102 containers aboard the Turkish-flagged container ship MOLIVA finally returned to Durres, Albania today after travelling thousands of miles across the globe to Southeast Asia and back.
Turkish ship MOLIVA, arrives in Durres with 102 containers of dust suspected to be hazardous waste. Source: Marinetraffic, copyright Gianluca Balloni.
Read MoreA Seattle-based NGO specialising in tracking toxic waste urged Albania on Tuesday to lead a transparent probe into hundreds of tons of possibly hazardous material expected to be shipped there next weekend.
In early July, 102 containers loaded, according to customs documents, with iron oxide, sailed from Albania's port of Durres for Thailand.
But according to information provided to the Basel Action Network (BAN) by a whistle-blower, they were also carrying electric furnace dust (EAFD).
Read MoreSeattle, USA, Durres, Albania. October 21, 2024. An estimated 2,100 total metric tonnes of suspected hazardous waste packed in 102 containers are expected to be returned to their country of origin, Albania, on October 27th, 2024, via the Italian port of Gioia Tauro after having sailed all the way to Singapore on their intended pathway to Thailand.
Read MoreA new study on global plastic pollution published by the University of Leeds in the Nature Journal is facing criticism for failing to account for the impacts of ‘waste colonialism’—the practice of high-income countries exporting plastic waste to lower-income nations.
The study, published on 04 September, claims that more than two-thirds of the annual 57 million tons of plastic pollution originate from countries in the Global South. It identifies India, Nigeria, and Indonesia as emerging plastic pollution hotspots and predicts that Sub-Saharan Africa could become the world’s largest source of plastic pollution in the coming decades.
Read MoreSeattle, Washington, USA. The planned sale by Washington State Ferries (WSF) of two ex-ferries, the Elwha and Klahowya, to an Ecuadorian steel mill has been halted in part over revelations that the foreign crew of the tugboat that would have pulled the ships to Ecuador suffered poor conditions, which came to light only after the crew had difficulty
conducting the towing operation about one month ago.
Read MoreEurope won’t put its trash up for sale anymore and its customers are not happy.
Read MoreAn estimated 816 total metric tonnes of hazardous waste suspected to be in 100 containers transferred by two A.P. Moller-Maersk’s A/S chartered ships will be returned to their country of origin, Albania, instead of being delivered to Thailand, according to Maersk spokesperson Summer Shi.
Read MoreSeattle, USA, Bangkok, Thailand, Cape Town, South Africa. A large Maersk container ship, carrying an estimated 327 tonnes of what is believed to be hazardous waste containers scheduled to dock in Cape Town, South Africa, has disappeared following a warning to the South African government by the international watchdog group, the Basel Action Network (BAN).
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The Basel Action Network (BAN), the organization that first exposed the global dumping of electronic wastes in China (2002) and Africa (2005), and continues to campaign against the highly polluting and dangerous dumping for "recycling" due to waste exports from rich, developed countries, has launched an online whistleblowers portal.
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