Parliament decided to accept the request of the Democratic Party, for an interpellation with the Prime Minister, Edi Rama on the toxic waste scandal.

The Chairmen Conference accepted Monday to realize this interpellation on September 12. 

The discovery that 800 tons of industrial waste, suspected to contain hazardous toxic substances, were exported from Albania’s port of Durrës, likely originating outside the country, has sparked a major international investigation, raising serious concerns about Albania’s potential role in global waste trafficking and the apparent failure of government oversight.

The Durres Prosecutor's Office in Albania and the European Union's Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, in Brussels, say they are both investigating 100 containers recently seized in Singapore, originating from the port of Durres.

The Basel Action Network (BAN), a U.S.-based NGO, was the first to raise the alarm on the toxic cargo and believes this was the latest of many shipments. Its experts believe Albania has been exploited to remove hazardous toxic waste not only from within the country but from the wider region, with the final destination being East Asia.

Every three or four months, a material suspected to be toxic dust known as EAF, short for Electric Arc Furnace dust, which is emitted from a metallurgical factory chimney, has been exported from the port of Durres, according to BAN, which cited a whistleblower from the port of Durres as its source.

"The first person who alerted us was an individual who observed the transport of toxic waste in the port of Durres. He was aware of where the toxic dust was going and had documents showing the path of the shipments," BAN representative Jim Puckett told VoA, adding that it conducted its own research and concluded that such shipments are regularly made from the port of Durres. "We were able to confirm that the containers reported by the whistleblower, their identification numbers, we verified through the Google Earth app, and also through Google Earth's satellite images, we located their exact location by comparing them with the lights and roads of the port. We have three data sources obtained at three different times. We suspect this happens every three or four months."

The shipment's paperwork shows the exported ash from the port of Durres belongs to Sokolaj, an Albanian company, which had labeled it as having purchased it from the Kurum company's factory in Elbasan, which produces steel and iron.

In a statement, the Turkish-owned Kurum said on Aug. 21: "Kurum International has never exported hazardous waste, and in this case, this shipment in question was not exported by Kurum International."

Puckett pointed out that "this material may originate from other European countries," adding that the frequent export of this material from Durres raises suspicions that it could not come only from the Kurum factory, as this factory is not large enough to produce such quantities of EAF dust.