All the goods which the Serbian company Pro-Plast transported to the northern Croatian Adriatic port of Rijeka have left Croatia and have for the most part already reached their destination in China, but environment inspectors are still checking whether the goods in question were toxic waste as media have claimed and whether they were falsely declared, the Croatian Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection said in a statement on Monday.
The goods were not declared as waste, but as zinc oxide and electric filter dust.
The statement was prompted by Croatian media reports that quoted Serbian media as saying that the Serbian company Pro-Plast of Sremska Mitrovica had exported about 2,200 tonnes of hazardous waste to China and that a portion of the shipment had been transported through Croatia and exported through the port of Rijeka. The Ministry said that all the goods had left the territory of Croatia.
The Croatian ministry has contacted the relevant Croatian authorities and the Serbian Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection to establish the circumstances surrounding the transport and export of the goods.
The information gathered shows that Pro-Plast shipped 73 goods containers, each weighing about 20 tonnes on average, to China in April, May and June this year. The goods were declared as zinc oxide and electric filter dust and were packed in bags and loaded into containers in Sremska Mitrovica, after which they were transported to Rijeka by rail and road, and from Rijeka to the Chinese port of Huangpu aboard three container ships.
"According to the officially confirmed information, all the goods that entered the Republic of Croatia have left the territory of the Republic of Croatia. Two ships with 59 containers have already reached their destination in China, while a third ship with 14 containers on board is due there some time today or tomorrow," the Croatian ministry said in the statement.
Serbian media have accused Pro-Plast of smuggling toxic waste and disposing of it in Greece, Romania and the Adriatic Sea. The company has rejected the accusations, but the Serbian Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection and the Customs Authority have launched an investigation.
Croatian Environment and Nature Protection Minister Mihael Zmajlovic said last week that his ministry and the relevant authorities were investigating to establish whether the toxic waste from Serbia had ended up in Croatia.
