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TAIWAN'S FORMOSA APOLOGISES FOR CAMBODIA WASTE

Reuters

TAIPEI, Taiwan, December 30, 1998 -- (Reuters) Taiwan industrial giant Formosa Plastics Corp said on Wednesday it was sorry that mercury-tainted waste that it shipped to Cambodia had caused an uproar.

``We express our utmost regret to the Cambodian government and its people for causing their disturbance,'' Formosa chairman Wang Yung-ching said in a letter to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen that was made available to reporters.

A team led by lawmaker Tseng Cheng-nung will leave for Phnom Penh on Thursday to try to resolve the dispute, a Formosa spokesman said.

Taipei has no diplomatic ties with Phnom Penh but Tseng has close links with Cambodian authorities.

The spokesman said the team would collect samples and express Formosa's concerns, but did not say when it would take back the 3,000 tonnes of industrial waste.

Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration said samples brought back by environmentalists had tested slightly above safe standards for mercury contamination and urged Formosa to retrieve the shipment.

Local reports said Formosa was considering sending the waste to the United States or Germany.

Formosa had the waste shipped to Cambodia in late November and it was dumped in the port of Sihanoukville.

News of the waste sparked riots in Sihanoukville in which one person reportedly was killed as protesters sacked offices of local officials they blamed for allowing its import.

Four others died in a panicked exodus of more than 10,000 Sihanoukville residents fearing contamination.

Cambodia's Health Ministry has said the reported deaths of at least two residents appeared linked to unprotected movement of the waste.

Formosa has said the cement-like material was tainted with mercury but had been certified by the Environmental Protection Administration as safe for landfill disposal.

Mineshi Sakamoto, a mercury poisoning expert from the Japanese environmental agency's Minamata Institute and adviser to the World Health Organization, said the waste could be a long-term health hazard and should be removed.

Separate tests by Singaporean laboratory Matcor Technology and Services showed mercury concentrations of 675 parts per million -- far above safe levels.

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