The Department of Industrial Works found an illegal landfill covering more than 80,000 tons of industrial waste in this eastern province.
In response to people’s complaints about considerable white dust from big trucks, Pruek Siroratanasret, the department’s director for industrial waste management, went to a factory of chemical fertilizers, gypsum, ammonia, ammonia hydroxide and sulfuric acid in the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate in Muang district, Rayong.
At the plant he found many piles of industrial waste and white chunks amounting to about 500,000 tons altogether. Backhoes were loading the waste on trucks.
Staff at the plant said the industrial waste came from National Fertilizer Co which shut down two decades ago and about 80,000 tons of the waste was already buried on an empty land plot some 10 kilometers from the plant.
The Department of Industrial Works checked the illegal landfill and stopped the transport of the waste from the plant. The department ordered the proper disposal of all the waste both inside and outside the plant. Officials collected samples of the waste for examination and will take legal action later. (TNA)