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SHIP LOADED WITH PCB WASTE RETURNING TO JAPAN

by Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER, Canada, 10 April 2000 -- Two Greenpeace inflatables escorted a ship with more than 100 tonnes of PCB waste out of Vancouver harbour Sunday afternoon as the vessel headed back to Japan, where its controversial cargo originated, a Greenpeace official said.

Steve Shallhorn, the environmental group's campaign director, said his organization is pleased the PCBs weren't unloaded either in Vancouver or Seattle.

He said the federal government should pass legislation banning the importation of hazardous wastes, and also launch a public inquiry into whether other shipments of U.S. military waste have been quietly slipped into the country.

The Wan He set sail from Yokohama, Japan, on March 23 with a cargo that included PCB waste such as transformers, circuit-breakers, other electrical gear, oil, packing material, rags and related debris from an American military base in Japan.

The ship makes a regular circuit from Yokohama to Long Beach, Calif., to Seattle, then Vancouver and back to Asia.

Studies have linked PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, to cancer.

The U.S. defence department had received permission to store the waste in a Seattle warehouse but the shipment was greeted with protests when it arrived last Wednesday. The China Ocean Shipping Co. container ship left Seattle for Vancouver Friday.

The shipment was originally destined for a facility in Kirkland Lake, Ont., owned by Trans-Cycle Industries of Pell City, Ala.

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