12562: The Guardian (UK): Cruising rubbish is home after 16 years (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Ashes to ashes: Cruising rubbish is home after 16 years
Matthew Engel in Washington
The Guardian - Thursday July 18, 2002


After the longest and least glamorous cruise in maritime history, the world's
best-travelled rubbish has finally come home.

Sixteen years after it left the US on a journey that reached the far east,
2,500 tons of incinerator ash is being dumped - once and for all - barely 100
miles from its starting point: the dustbins of Philadelphia. En route, the
rubbish touched at least 14 different countries, causing several
confrontations at gunpoint. No one wanted it. Finally the state of
Pennsylvania, with a weary sigh, has taken it back.

The ash, 15,000 tons of it to begin with, was shipped out in 1986 because the
city had run out of landfill space. The plan was to take it to an island in
the Bahamas, owned by the shipping company. However, the Bahamian government,
apparently tipped off by Greenpeace about this particular American export,
vetoed the idea, so the Khian Sea, the cargo ship carrying the ash, was
forced to set sail and find somewhere, anywhere, that was willing to take the
stuff. No one was.

Whispers spread that the consignment was toxic. This was hotly denied by the
Pennsylvania authorities, but governments from Honduras to the Philippines
decided not to take the chance.

Most of the cargo was dumped illegally in the ocean, which led to two
shipping company officials receiving jail sentences. But a portion of the ash
was left on a beach in Haiti until protesters forced its removal.

This is the ash that has now come home. It arrived in Florida two years ago,
with wild flowers and 10ft high pine trees growing out of it. Six US states
followed the example of the rest of the world, until Pennsylvania - which now
has extra landfill sites - agreed to do its duty.

"The state believes that, since this was originally Pennsylvania waste, we
should take it back," said Sandra Rodrick of the state department of
environmental protection. Lorryloads of the ash are being car ried to the
site, in rolling countryside, after travelling north by train.

Still, there is no happy ending. Local villagers are unimpressed with having
Philadelphia's rubbish - historic or otherwise - dumped on them. They call
the site Mount Trashmore. It is unclear who will pay the final bill.

Florida officials say Pennsylvania may be hearing from their lawyers shortly.


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