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TAIWAN WASTE IN CAMBODIA SAID TO CONTAIN MERCURY

XINHUA

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, 19 January 1999 - - A group of environmentalists from Cambodia and abroad said Tuesday that the industrial waste imported from Taiwan and dumped in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, last year contained a high content of mercury.

The international environmental organizations Greenpeace and the Basel Action Network (BAN) and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) told a press conference here that a study performed in Hong Kong has shown a sample of the waste to have a mercury level as high as 10,971 parts per million (over 1 percent).

Tests for possible damage to the immune system, nervous system and kidneys of those exposed to the waste have yet to be undertaken. According to a preliminary study released by the NGO Forum on Cambodia, the toxic waste has already caused direct and indirect impacts on people's health and life.

The study said the direct impact is that two people have died so far and five dock workers, who handled the waste, were reported to be seriously ill. And in the three affected villages, there are also people who got sick and some families were forced to leave their homes for Phnom Penh and other places. Indirect impact is that there are few buyers and sellers in Sihanoukville and as a result, income for the people there has declined by 30 to 40 percent a day because people are too scared to buy seafood, suspecting that it has been polluted.

Meanwhile, the number of tourists has also gone down rapidly. About 3,000 tons of so-called industrial waste was imported from a Taiwan plastics company on November 30, 1998, and dumped four days later in an open area in the outskirts of Sihanoukville, 230 kilometers west of Phnom Penh. The Cambodian government has ordered that the waste be sent back to Taiwan and Taiwan's environmental agency also requested the plastics company to take responsibility for returning the waste to Taiwan.

According to the local media, the government will remove all officials involved in the import of the waste. So far, more than 30 customs officials are suspended, including the director of the national customs.

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