GEORGE TOWN: Two containers filled with a mixture of e-waste, as well as crushed plastic and metal waste, found their way to the North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT) on mainland Penang.
The Penang Department of Environment (DoE) uncovered the smuggling in of the wastes when the containers passed through the scanner machine.
State Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said the containers, declared as e-waste, arrived from Japan recently.
They were imported by a recycling company from neighbouring Kedah.
"The scanner picked up something and upon further examination, found more than just e-waste.
"This is nothing new. It has been happening since 2018, which is why we appealed to the Finance Ministry to install the scanner to detect unwanted waste being brought into the country last year.
"We will not condone such actions. We will discuss with the Environment and Water Ministry to have the containers shipped back to its country of origin," he told the New Straits Times.
Phee said e-waste now fetches a very lucrative price, adding that the state DoE and state Customs Department had alerted their Kedah counterparts on the matter for necessary action to be taken.
"If it is bound for Penang, we will take very stern action. But since the containers are bound for Kedah, we can only recommend that the importer be blacklisted and compounded accordingly," he added.
Meanwhile, the DoE, on its Facebook page, said it had taken samples of the scheduled as well as non-scheduled wastes for testing.
"Following the recovery of the containers, the state DoE will identify the owner of the containers and enforcement action will be taken. They will also be asked to send back the wastes to the country of origin," it added.
Since the third quarter of last year, Malaysia had returned 150 containers of plastic wastes, weighing 3,737 metric tonnes, to their countries of origin.
Of the 150 containers of plastic waste, 40 containers involved exporters from France, the United Kingdom (42), the United States (17), Canada (11), Spain (10) and Hong Kong (nine).
Others included five containers from Japan, Singapore (four), Portugal (three), China (three) and one each from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Lithuania.
The containers were shipped back to their countries of origin via ports in Klang, Penang and Sarawak, with no costs incurred by the government.