Lebanon link resurfaces in Italy’s toxic waste scandal

During a live recording in Rome on 19 May of the spin-off of their recently released Italian-language podcast, Who’s Interested?, Andrea Carnì, a research fellow at the University of Milan, and podcaster Maria Vittoria Sparano revealed new evidence suggesting that a third ship was present during a 1988 toxic-waste operation in Beirut, deepening the mystery at the heart of Italy’s long-running “ships to lose” scandal. 

The podcast investigates the suspicious death of Italian harbourmaster Natale De Grazia, who died on the night of 12 December 1995 while travelling from Reggio Calabria to meet key sources for his inquiry into the responsibilities behind the ships to lose. He never reached his destination. The case has now returned to the spotlight, with Italy’s parliamentary inquiry commission reopening its investigation into De Grazia’s death and the wider toxic-waste network. 

The term refers to vessels suspected of carrying toxic or radioactive materials and being deliberately sunk at sea. During the Rome event, Carnì and Sparano focused on what they described as the “year zero” of this story: 21 September 1987. 

On that day, a ship called the Radost was heading towards the port of Beirut. It was carrying more than 2,000 tonnes of material officially declared toxic, all produced in Italy. The vessel docked in Beirut harbour, where its cargo was unloaded. 

“In that period,” Carnì said, “it was normal for countries of the Global North to dispose of their industrial waste in countries of the Global South: Venezuela, Nigeria, Somalia, Lebanon, Romania and others.” 

This wider phenomenon became known as the ships of poisons, because the waste exported from industrialised countries was often toxic. In its report on the ships of poisons, the Italian parliamentary waste commission of the 17th legislature underlined Italy’s strategic position at the centre of the Mediterranean, making it a key hub for the transport of Europe’s waste. 

The destinations were often countries marked by deep political corruption, such as Nigeria, or countries torn apart by civil war, such as Somalia and Lebanon. According to Sparano and Carnì, Lebanon is where the story of the ships of poisons intersects with that of the ships to lose. This is the “year zero”. 

When the Radost reached Beirut harbour, Lebanon’s civil war had already been raging for 12 years. Beirut was still divided in two: the Sunni-majority west and the Christian east, where the port was located. On 21 September 1987, as the ship docked, Christian militias unloaded barrels of toxic material from its hold. 

A few months later, in June 1988, it emerged that signatures on the unloading documents had been falsified. The Italian ambassador in Lebanon contacted the foreign ministry, and a diplomatic crisis loomed. 

The Italian government then chose to use public funds to carry out the waste remediation operation. As Sparano and Carnì underlined, public money earmarked for cooperation with Lebanon, amounting to 16 billion old Italian lire, was allocated and paid to the Italian private company Monteco, which was tasked with the operation. 

The barrels of toxic waste had been stored in various locations before Christian militias brought them back to the port. There, according to the official version based on documents from the Italian parliamentary commission, two ships, the Yvonne and the Vorais Sporadais, were moored to carry out transhipment operations onto the Jolly Rosso, one of the ships to lose investigated by De Grazia. The Jolly Rosso was chosen to transport the cargo back to Italy and arrived in Beirut harbour in early January 1989. 

But during the podcast spin-off, Sparano and Carnì presented new information. 

They had examined Monteco’s clean-up reports, held in the Italian state archives in Rome. Among the company documents were port layout plans for Beirut. In one drawing, dated 18 October 1988, three ships can be seen: the Yvonne, the Vorais Sporadais, and the Inge Webb, a vessel whose flag remains unknown. 

They also viewed photographs taken in Beirut port. In one image, both the Yvonne and the Vorais Sporadais are visible, along with the side of a third vessel, believed to be the Inge Webb. 

Yet the Italian parliamentary waste commission’s documents refer only to the presence of two ships in Beirut harbour between 11 and 15 November 1988 for Monteco’s operation. That means that between 18 October and 11 November 1988, one ship disappeared from the official record, raising fresh questions about what it may have carried. 

As Sparano put it: “It was a ship, not a marble.” 

So far, no one has been held accountable for the crimes linked to either the ships to lose or the ships of poisons. But Sparano and Carnì remain cautiously optimistic. The commission’s reopening of the De Grazia inquiry suggests the story is still moving, while a recent French scientific mission identifying thousands of barrels of radioactive waste in the Atlantic shows how long-buried environmental crimes can still surface.