space Press Releases, News Stories

by Dow Jones Newswire, Associated Press

The company sent 3,000 metric tons of the mercury-laden waste to Cambodia in 1998. But the firm shipped the material back after being accused of using poor nations as a dumping ground for unsafe chemical byproducts.

An undisclosed amount of the waste, stored in 32 containers, was shipped to Rotterdam in December for transshipment to an unidentified European country for disposal, the Central Daily News reported Friday.

The remaining 325 containers are still stored in the port at the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, the newspaper said.

A company official told Dow Jones Newswires Friday that the report was largely correct and he didn't have further comments.

The newspaper quoted unidentified Formosa Plastics officials as saying the 32 containers contained empty contaminated barrels and clothes worn by people handling the waste.

Residents near Formosa Plastics' plants were opposed to a company plan of burying the waste at its factory sites for fear of contamination.

The waste was originally shipped to the coastal Cambodian town of Sihanoukville, where residents rioted and fled in panic in December 1998 after environmental officials discovered the toxic material.

Last summer, four men - two Cambodians and two Taiwanese - were convicted in Cambodia of masterminding the import of the waste and crudely disposing it in an exposed heap on the outskirts of Sihanoukville.