Tunisia will ship back to Italy more than 280 containers of household waste illegally imported in 2020 from this country, the Tunisian Ministry of the Environment announced on Monday.
Containers from Campania, a region in southern Italy, are still at the port and in a warehouse near Sousse (east). They had been imported by a Tunisian company that had falsely presented them as plastic waste which it was supposed to recycle.
“An institutional cooperation agreement was signed on Friday, February 11, 2022, between Tunisia and Italy concerning the return of waste to their country of origin (Italy),” the Tunisian Ministry of the Environment said in a statement on Monday. communicated.
The agreement in question “defines the commitments incumbent on each of the parties with regard to the repatriation, in the first place, of 213 containers of waste, currently stored at the port of Sousse, to Italy”, specified the ministry.
According to him, “the reshipment of this waste will take place onboard the first ARKAS ship, on February 19, 2022”.
The reshipment of the rest of the waste, which is stored in a warehouse in Sousse damaged by a fire in December, is the subject of “consultations” between the two parties, the statement added.
Twenty-six people are being prosecuted in Tunisia for their alleged involvement in the illegal import of this waste, including customs officials and the former Minister of the Environment, Mustapha Aroui, who was arrested.
Eight are in prison and one on the run: the manager of the importing company, who had signed a contract with an Italian company for the disposal of a maximum of 120,000 tons, at a price of 48 euros per ton – a total exceeding 5 million euros.
Several demonstrations took place in Tunisia to demand the return of this waste to Italy. The case caused a scandal, especially since Tunisian infrastructure does not allow the country to treat its own waste.
According to Tunisian media, the Campania authorities blocked the export to Tunisia of 600 other waste containers intended for incineration in a cement factory in early 2021, due to suspicions about their compliance.
