Court of Appeal orders Govt. Analyst report on waste containers

• Customs tells Court 1,000 containers still at Colombo Port with no owners

By Manopriya Gunasekera 

The Court of Appeal yesterday ordered the Government Analyst’s Department to investigate into over 1000 containers containing waste at the Colombo Port and submit a report. 

Some of the containers, which are yet to be cleared from the Colombo Port, have been imported from the UK and have been at the centre of a controversy for nearly two weeks. A section of these containers were released and are at the Katunayake Export Processing Zone but the Board of Investment (BoI) last week ordered they be re-exported by 12 August. 

Sri Lanka Customs (SLC) informed the Court that there were over 1,000 containers, with no ownership, claimed at the Colombo International Container Terminals at the Colombo Port for the last two years.

“The SLC informed the Court that they lack space to stock other containers due to the stagnation of those unclaimed containers. It has also informed that there are some doubts whether those containers would also contain waste smuggled from Western countries,” Attorney-At-Law Ravindranath Dabare, who appeared for Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), which filed a petition against the authorities for their negligence to regulate contaminated waste bringing into the country, said.

A writ petition was earlier filed before the Appeal Court seeking a Court order directing legal action to be taken against the importers of the waste containers. CEJ also sought a Court order instructing that the mixed waste in these containers must not be dumped in the country.

The petition was filed against the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) and the Director-General of Customs for their failure to regulate the importation of mixed contaminated waste into the country.

The CEJ had requested the Court of Appeal to order the CEA and Customs to conduct an investigation in the illegal importation of hazardous waste and also to take legal action against the importer or importers under the terms of the National Environmental Act and also the Customs Ordinance.

CEJ Executive Director Hemantha Withanage said that the waste consignments were imported to be disposed of within the country, which would have caused severe harm to the people and the environment. He also said that the importer had violated the National Environmental Act (NEA) No. 47 of 1980, which clearly states that the disposal of waste can only be done under a permit issued by the CEA.

Withanage said that the importer had also violated the terms of the BASEL Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, for which Sri Lanka is a signatory and had ratified the Convention in 1992, by bringing hazardous waste amounting to approximately 4,500 MT.

The CEJ has also requested the Court to order the importer to re-export the waste containers to their original destination.

The petition is being heard before Justices Yasantha Kodagoda and Arjuna Obeysekera. The Customs Director General, AG and the Central Environment Authority have been named as respondents to the petition.