space Press Releases, News Stories

by CHHAY SOPHAL, Reuters

"The 357 containers of waste are being loaded on a ship and we expect the ship to leave on Friday from Sihanoukville," Om Yentiang, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen, told reporters in this southern port.

The waste, illegally dumped in Cambodia last year by Taiwanese petrochemicals giant Formosa Plastics Corp, was packed in 18,195 sealed drums weighing 5,000 tonnes. It was loaded on the M.V. Eagle Prosperity.

A government official, who did not want to be named, said it was expected to be taken to the United States.

The ship containers bore the stamp of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the words "quarantine" and "restricted entry".

The Los Angeles Times reported last Friday that South Carolina-based Safety-Kleen Corp was still seeking permission to treat and bury the waste at its hazardous waste dump site outside the hamlet of Westmorland in California's Imperial Valley.

The paper said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was reviewing its initial approval of the plan after being given documents by environmentalists that suggested the industrial waste was more dangerous than the firm had stated.

Environmentalists have also charged that dumping outside Westmorland, a low-income, heavily Latino community, constitutes "environmental racism" in violation of a 1994 presidential directive.

The paper said it was thought it would be the largest foreign importation of toxic material in California history.

The waste was illegally dumped on open ground outside Sihanoukville and its discovery in December sparked riots in the town in which at least one person was killed. Several others died in accidents during a panicked exodus of some 10,000 people from the town.

Formosa Plastics initially said the concrete-like rubble was safe for landfill disposal, but later acknowledged some of it might slightly exceed safety standards. Tests showed that much of the waste contained very high levels of mercury.

Environmental groups and human rights workers said at least two people died after exposure to the waste, although the causes of death were never confirmed.

Safety-Kleen has described the waste as "low-grade" mercury waste from the production of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipe.

Sen Jiing Lim, a plant manager at Formosa Plastics, told reporters it had been processed using strict quality control techniques. "No mercury will leak out and cause harm to human bodies. The technique has proven the most reliable in the world."

(C) Reuters Limited 1999.