Colombo (News 1st): The Customs noted the containers containing garbage which are in their custody will be opened on Thursday (July 18). They confirmed that the initial investigations into the incident have concluded. 94 of the 102 containers sent to Sri Lanka from the United Kingdom were found to be full of garbage after Custom officials opened and inspected 5 of them. Against a backdrop where there are strict laws on garbage disposal in developed nations, the procedure is highly expensive. Former additional Secretary to the Ministry of Environment Professor Padmini Batuwitage said that developed countries tactically use developing countries like Sri Lanka to dump their waste. She went onto note that the Basel Convention is an international convention with 187 signatory countries and Sri Lanka ratified the convention in 1992. She said if any form of waste is to be exported to another country, the permission of that country must be sought first. Professor Batuwitage said in Sri Lanka, the competent authority for that is the Central Environmental Authority and at that time itself, they took a policy decision and got cabinet approval for that as well, not to import any waste material from any other country in the world. She added that the technical committee also decided that if any such waste is to be brought into the country for the purpose of processing, the resulting waster after the processing should be sent back to the country that it was initially imported from. She said they were careful not to allow garbage brought in from another country to end up being an issue for Sri Lanka. However, the company that imported these consignments of garbage had relied on this Extraordinary Gazette notification issued on the 11th of July 2013 and brought down the containers on false pretences.

According to the Law of the country, will this garbage be sent back?

People are watching