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by Agence France Presse

Formosa Plastics Corp. wants to send the shipment, which has been lingering in Taiwan after it sparked riots in a Cambodian port and was sent back home, for disposal at a specialised plant in eastern France, the source said.

"A request has been received to bring in mercury-tainted earth and waste from Taiwan-China," the official, Alain Strebelle, under-director for products and waste at the environment ministry, told AFP.

"An initial request has been filed for 5,000 tonnes, and a request to dispose of another 5,000 tonnes is expected later," he said, stressing: "No decision about (authorising) the request has been made."

The saga of the waste began last December, when riots erupted in the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville, triggered by residents' fears that the consignment was responsible for the death of a port worker.

The grey sludge -- described in customs documents as "construction waste" -- was later found in tests to contain high levels of mercury.

Protests eventually forced the waste to be repacked and shipped back to Taiwan, where it landed in the port of Kaohsiung on April 8.

Formosa Plastics said in May that an attempt to send the consignment to Los Angeles had been refused due to what it described as incomplete documents and it was looking for another site overseas to handle the waste.

Two Cambodian human rights workers, accused of inciting violence in the protests, were acquitted on July 21.

Two Taiwanese businessmen were given five-year jail terms and fines in absentia.

Strebelle said the request to handle the waste had been filed by a company called TREDI, which wanted to dispose of it at a special plant it operates at St. Vulbas, in the Ain prefecture in eastern france.

The two-year-old facility is able to handle mercury waste under a process called vacuum vaporisation, which does not release any of the toxic substance into the environment, he said.

The consignment that was sent to Cambodia is reported to have been between 2,700 and 3,000 tonnes. There were no immediate details as to why the import request concerned a higher figure, Strebelle said.

Strebelle said that such requests require authorisation from the environment ministry, environmental controls by customs officials at the port of entry and approval by the local prefect.

Consultations with local officials and environment groups in the Ain were be launched on Wednesday, he said.

A Paris-based environmental group, the National Centre for Independent Information on Waste, said the waste was a byproduct of the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) -- a widely-used plastic -- and that Formosa Plastics was offering French firms 300 dollars per tonne to handle it.