Several Asian countries have taken steps in recent years to defend themselves against an avalanche of trash from more developed countries.
Officials in Sri Lanka said on Monday that the last of several hundred containers containing thousands of tonnes of illegally imported rubbish had been sent out to the United Kingdom for disposal.
Several Asian countries have begun to battle back against an assault of garbage from wealthier nations in recent years, and some have begun to turn away undesirable shipments as a result of this.
It was between 2017 and 2019 that the rubbish from the United Kingdom arrived in Sri Lanka, and it was classified as "worn mattresses, carpets, and rugs."
However, according to customs inspectors, the shipment also contained biowaste from hospitals, including body parts from mortuaries, as reported by the AFP news agency on Monday.
According to authorities, the containers were not properly cooled, and some of them had a strong stink.
It was the final batch of 263 containers, containing around 3,000 tonnes of rubbish, that were put aboard a ship at a Colombo port on Monday, with 45 containers being loaded.
It's possible that other efforts to import such dangerous items may be made, but Customs Chief Vijitha Ravipriya says the department will remain watchful and guarantee that this does not happen again.
Customs reports that the first 21 containers containing medical waste will be returned to the United Kingdom in September 2020.
A local firm had imported the garbage from the United Kingdom, claiming that it intended to recover the springs from used mattresses as well as cotton, which it intended to reship to manufacturers in other parts of the world.
Customs, on the other hand, was unable to locate solid proof of such "resource recovery."
In 2020, a local environmental activist organization filed a case demanding that the rubbish be returned to the sender, and the petition was upheld by Sri Lanka's Court of Appeal in the following year.
All of the containers, according to Customs, were brought into the country in contravention of international treaties controlling the export of hazardous waste, which included plastics.
The findings of a Sri Lankan inquiry in 2019 revealed that the importer had reshipped around 180 tonnes of rubbish carried into the country in 2017 and 2018 to India and Dubai.
Hundreds of containers of waste have been returned to their countries of origin by the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, among other countries.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
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