Taiwan’s petrochemical giant Formosa Plastics shipped 3,000 tonnes of 20-year old sludge, packed in cement cakes, and tainted with the highly toxic metal mercury to Cambodia, which arrived in Sihanoukville, the major port in Cambodia, on November 30, 1998. This consignment was described in customs documents as ‘construction waste’ and was dumped four days later in areas adjacent to an important fresh watershed and in villages near the Ream National Park. The timely and massive media exposure of the waste dumped at a single site led to a nationwide upheaval and popular, widespread outrage of such casual jettisoning of poison. These disclosures described the scandal as a multimillion dollar conspiracy of deceit involving Taiwanese businessmen and Cambodian officials.
