A German ship owned by the Danish shipping company Maersk has been falsely accused of an attempt to dump a container of toxic waste in West Africa. Cameroon’s minister of the environment had warned that the vessel, the Maersk Nashville, was sailing off the coast.

Inquiries to Maersk and to the Dutch Ministry for the Environment (VROM) revealed that the ship concerned has been unfairly shown in a bad light. The cargo had come from Rotterdam, but the ship sails under the German flag. The vessel had already been in the news in April, when it was seized by the Nigerians.

Administrative error
The Nigerians were reacting to a tip from VROM. Following an inspection, the ministry had forbidden the transport of a container to Africa with, amongst other things, old TV sets. Electronic waste must not be exported to non-OECD countries. But the container was loaded onto the Maersk Nashville due to an administrative error.

As soon as VROM discovered the mistake, it warned the authorities in Nigeria. They initially arrested the crew of the Maersk, but then released the ship and its crew on condition that it transported the container back to Rotterdam. That’s what happened, according to a spokesperson for VROM.

Probo Koala
In 2006, the Probo Koala dumped toxic waste in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. According to the authorities in Ivory Cost, seventeen people died and thousands of others were sick as a result. Oil company Trafigura, which had hired the ship, has always disputed that the waste caused the deaths and illness. But the company has paid out millions of euros in compensation.