New Delhi: Sri Lanka sent out the last several containers filled with thousands of tonnes of illegally imported waste to Britain on Monday, reported AFP. The 45 containers loaded onto a ship at a Colombo port on Monday were the final batch of 263 containers holding around 3,000 tonnes of waste.
"There could be fresh attempts to import such hazardous cargo, but we will be vigilant and ensure that this does not happen again," the report quoted customs chief Vijitha Ravipriya.
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The waste from Britain arrived in Sri Lanka between 2017 and 2019 and was listed as "used mattresses, carpets and rugs". However, in reality, these contained biowastes from hospitals including body parts and since these containers were not chilled they gave off a very powerful stench.
The report said that in 2020, the first 21 containers filled with medical waste were sent back to Britain. A local company had imported these containers to extract springs and cotton from mattresses and reship it back to manufacturers abroad.
But customs failed to find credible evidence of such "resource recovery", the AFP report stated.
A local environmentalist group filed a petition in Sri Lanka's Court of Appeal for these waste containers to be sent back to the sender, the court upheld the petition in 2020.
An investigation by Sri Lanka in 2019 found the importer had reshipped about 180 tonnes of waste brought into the island to India and Dubai in 2017 and 2018.
The customs added that the waste sent to the country was in violation of international law governing the shipment of hazardous waste, including plastics.
Several Asian countries have started to push back on waste sent by wealthier countries and are turning back unwanted shipments. Aside from Sri Lanka, countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia have also returned hundreds of containers of waste back to their countries of origin.