From December 21, 2016 to January 3, 2017, at the Phuoc Long – Thu Duc Port, the police and customs agency examined 15 containers of scrap materials imported from Hong Kong and the US and discovered that the goods inside the containers were electronic waste banned from import. 

Old broken electronic circuit boards were found in three containers, while TV transceivers were found in the remaining.

The importer as shown on the customs agency’s documents was CEM, a casting and molding company in Binh Phuoc province. The company made customs declarations for six out of 15 containers at the Binh Phuoc province customs agency, saying that the imports were copper scrap materials. 

However, the company’s representative did not turn up after making the customs declarations. Only after examining the containers, did the police and customs agency find that the imports were e-waste.

Hundreds of unowned import containers of waste banned by Vietnam have been left at HCMC ports, causing problems for port authorities.

Since the six import containers were examined and seized, the company refused to receive the remaining nine containers.

A customs officer said that all the import e-waste was from the US. It is highly possible that that the scraps had been disposed of and then collected by organizations to export to other countries. 

The e-waste containers are just part of hundreds of containers of scrap materials left unowned at the Cat Lai Port. Most of the material contains used car tires and plastic scraps.

According to the HCMC Customs Agency, 480 containers of used tires have been left unowned for more than 90 days. These include 281 containers (6,744 tons) examined for treatment steps, while 200 others have not been treated.

An official said the agency is in dilemma. As too many containers of used tires have been left at the port, they are feared to cause traffic congestion. Meanwhile, it will be very costly to ruin the products and the export companies refuse to get the exports back.

Customs agency also found tens of containers of plastic scraps. The owners of the imports would rather abandon the goods than receive them and face punishment for importing prohibited scraps.

In other cases, the owners of the imports have been gone bankrupt or no longer operate. No one has turned up to receive the imports.

The latest report of the General Department of Customs (GDC) showed that thousands of containers of unowned used tires have been left at many ports.

At Hai Phong Port, there are 3,026 containers of tires and scrap rubber. 

Meanwhile, in many cases, the lack of cooperation among involved parties, including port developers and transport firms, has created problems for the treatment of scraps.

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