British Ambassador to Romania Andrew Noble has said that he is concerned to learn that there might have been criminal abuse of legitimate trade links between the UK and Romania in light of the recent information about illegal waste exports from the UK to Romania.

“If there is evidence of criminal behavior, I encourage the Romanian authorities to pursue the perpetrators with all the rigor of the law. We take such matters very seriously in the UK,” the ambassador said in a press release.

According to the UK’s Environment Agency, “the illegal export of waste is a crime and we will not hesitate to take action against those responsible with offenders facing either a two-year jail term and an unlimited fine.”

Earlier this year, the Environment Agency launched a new task force dedicated to tackling serious and organized waste crime, such as dumping hazardous materials on private land and falsely labeling waste so it can be exported abroad to unsuspecting countries. The agency’s main focus is on disrupting potential illegal shipments through upstream intervention at waste sites to prevent it from being exported in the first place.

In 2018/19, the Environment Agency inspected 926 shipping containers at port and returned 236 of those to sites due to the unsuitability of the waste due to be exported, thus preventing the illegal export of 12,690 tonnes of waste, according to the British Embassy’s press release.

Two Romanians and a British citizen are being investigated in connection to illegal waste imports from the UK to Romania after the Romanian Coast Guard found 16 containers with waste from the UK on a Dutch ship in the port of Constanta. According to the documentation, the containers should have contained second-hand household products. The illegal imports were carried out by a firm that has operations in Bucharest and Ilfov county, according to Agerpres. The 16 containers were sent back to the company that shipped them.

On March 3, after massive air pollution recorded in Bucharest over the weekend, Romania’s minister of environment Costel Alexe said this could have been caused by companies burning waste illegally imported from the UK. The authorities started checking the companies in Bucharest and the surrounding areas that collect and manage waste, suspected to be behind the massive pollution in Bucharest.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Romania's Coast Guard)