Sri
Lanka on Monday shipped the last several hundred containers containing
thousands of tonnes of illegally imported waste to the United Kingdom.

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In
recent years, several Asian countries have started to take a step against an
onslaught of unwanted shipments from developed nations. The waste from the UK arrived in Sri Lanka
between 2017 and 2019 and was listed as “used mattresses, carpets and
rugs”.

But
in reality, the containers were filled with biowaste from hospitals, including
body parts from mortuaries, according to customs officials. Those containers
which were not chilled even gave off an unpleasant smell.

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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,” customs chief Vijitha
Ravipriya said.

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In
September 2020, Sri Lanka shipped back 21 containers containing medical waste
to the UK, the country’s customs department said.

According
to news agency AFP, a local company had imported the waste from the European
nation, saying it planned to recover the springs from used mattresses as well
as cotton to be reshipped to manufacturers abroad.

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But
customs did not find any credible evidence of such “resource
recovery”. A local environmental activist group filed a petition demanding
the waste be returned to its sender and Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal upheld the
petition in 2020.

Customs
maintained that all the containers had been brought into the country in violation
of international law governing the shipment of hazardous waste, including
plastics.

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In
2019, after the Sri Lanka government launched an investigation, the
investigation team found the importer had reshipped about 180 tonnes of waste
brought into the island to India and Dubai in 2017 and 2018.

In
the past, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have also returned hundreds
of containers of refuse back to their countries of origin.