Municipal waste from the United States is raising a stink in India with authorities still looking for a solution to dispose it off nearly three years after it was mistakenly sent to Tuticorin port and the matter has landed before a court.
Nearly 900 tonnes of plastic, rubber and leather garbage stored in 35 cargo containers (CCs) cannot be sent back to the US or to any other country without the plastic content being segregated, its New Jersey exporter Evergreen Specialities said.
The problem has been compounded further since some countries accepts waste only if it is of plastic.
And the owners of the containers are breathing on the necks of the exporters. They want their containers back and filed a petition at the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.
Meanwhile, the company's administrator U B Sehgal, in his counter affidavit filed on Tuesday, said a Bangladesh buyer had come forward to buy the plastic goods. But the Bangladeshi customs would permit entry of goods only if they contained plastic waste alone.
"Only plastic goods will be allowed into Bangladesh," he said.
He said a high level committee, which inspected the cargo, as directed by the court, had found that the containers contained municipal waste, including plastic waste, bottles, rubber mats and leather bags.
The administrator said such a mixture of plastic waste and other articles could not be sent to any country.
Sehgal claimed that the cargo containing 879.81 tonnes of municipal waste was mistakenly sent to India as part of 25,000 tonnes of mixed waste paper imported by ITC limited (Paper Boards Division) Secunderabad.
