Malaysian port officials have discovered a new batch of over 200 shipping containers from Taiwan contaning industrial waste believed to be toxic, officials said today.

"We are investigating the contents of the 223 containers," Tengku Bakry Shah Tengku Johan, Johor's evironment director, told AFP .

The latest discovery of 5,500 tonnes over the weekend follows reports last week that nearly 12,000 tonnes of toxic industrial waste from Taiwan were exported illegally to Malaysia.

Taiwan said it was prepared take back the toxic industrial waste exported to Malaysia after the environmental authorities found the import license for the shipment was bogus.

Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) received a tip-off in January that a Taipei-based group had been exporting the toxic waste to its Malaysian partner with a fake Malaysian import license.

Tengku Bakry said initial investigations revealed that exporting and importing companies were the same companies that were involved in the earlier batch of industrial waste.

Dumping ground

A local environment group lashed out at the government for failing to protect the environment.

"Hundreds of containers with toxic waste are coming into the country and yet we are slow to detect them," Vincent Chow, Malaysian Nature Society Johor advisor told AFP .

"Malaysia may fast become a dumping ground of toxic waste if we do not beef up our guard since we are close to many other industrial countries like Japan and Korea," he added.

Chow said there was a possibility that some of the toxic waste stored over a period of six months in the port could have escaped into the air.

Chow said Malaysian environment authorities should ship all the toxic waste back to Taiwan immediately and not waste time and public funds to investigate if the material are indeed toxic.

"Taiwan's EPA has said it is toxic. So just ship it back," he said.

Malaysia is a party to the Basel Convention and hence it was required that the hazardous waste be shipped back to the source of origin.

Chow said the waste was the end product of printed circuit boards.

Because Malaysia's environment laws were outdated and enforcement weak, the Johor-based Synenviro Sdn. Bhd., a brick making company was able to import the toxic waste from Taiwan, Chow added.

Southeast Asian nations are fast becoming a toxic dumping ground for waste from developed countries, environmental group Greenpeace said last week. - AFP