Khian Sea waste disposal incident
1986 waste disposal incident
The Khian Sea waste disposal incident was an incident in maritime waste disposal. The Liberian cargo ship Khian Sea was loaded with 14,000 tons of ash from waste incinerators in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in August 1986. After searching futilely for a place to dump the waste, the ship eventually dumped 4,000 tons near Gonaïves, Haiti in January 1988, and the other 10,000 tons in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean in November 1988. Since then, there have been attempts to take the waste from Haiti to somewhere else. The case contributed to the creation of the Basel Convention about disposal of hazardous waste.
Incident
Loading
On August 31, 1986, the cargo ship Khian Sea, registered in Liberia, was loaded with more than 14,000 tons of ash from waste incinerators in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
First unloading
The city had previously sent such waste to New Jersey, but that state refused to accept any more after 1984.
The company handling the waste (Joseph Paolino and Sons) subcontracted shipment to Amalgamated Shipping Corp and Coastal Carrier Inc, operators of Khian Sea. The latter intended to dump the ash in the Bahamas. However, the Bahamian government turned the ship away, and Philadelphia withheld payment to the companies because the waste was not disposed of.
“Khian Sea waste disposal incident” enters the record as 1986 waste disposal incident. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Khian, waste and disposal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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