Eighteen tons of plastic waste found in containers holding cars was shipped back to Taiwan on Sunday after Sihanoukville Port authorities ordered its removal, officials said.
Earlier this month, a joint government inspection team found the plastic hidden in the corners of three containers of Honda cars that were brought into Cambodia by the Peng Sear Impex import company.
The company claimed the plastic, packed in 553 bags, was used as cushions to store cars safely, said Var Sonarth, deputy director of the port. But he said he did not believe them.
“I don’t believe that the plastic was used to store cars. It is too much,” he said. “Probably they wanted to dump it in Cambodia.” He said the government also fined the company 10 million riel ($28,600).
Khlauk Chuon, deputy director for the Commerce Ministry’s Camcontrol inspections department, said the bags containing the plastic were not listed in shipment documents. The containers arrived in Sihanoukville late last month and were sent back Sunday, Var Sonarth said.
After the plastic was discovered, Tieh Cheng Sovereign Enterprise Inc, a Taiwanese shipper, apologized in a letter sent to the Cambodian government, saying the waste was supposed to be exported to China but was mistakenly sent to Cambodia, Khlauk Chuon said.
“The plastic was ‘second recycling plastic,’ which can not be recycled any more and should be disposed as waste,” Khlauk Chuon said.
The incident comes nearly two years after another Taiwanese company, Formosa Plastics Corp, dumped roughly 3,000 tons of mercury-tainted waste near Sihanoukville, which caused a health scare, riots and an exodus in the seaside town. The Taiwanese company last year agreed to take the waste back.
In the Formosa case, Taiwanese company officials and a Cambodian businessman were found guilty of dumping the toxic waste, but government officials accused of allowing the waste into Cambodia were acquitted. More than 350 containers of the toxic waste are still sitting on docks in Taiwan.
