A civil protection member of Ivory Coast points at a site polluted with toxic waste from the Probo Koala ship at the Akouedo district in Abidjan on September 19, 2006. In mid-August 2006 the Probo Koala ship unloaded in Abidjan more than 500 tonnes of a highly toxic mixture of oil residue and caustic soda used to rinse out the ship's tanks. The trial of 12 people charged with involvement in the 2006 toxic waste pollution scandal in the Ivory Coast is set to go ahead on September 29, 2008 according to court documents. The toxic sludge, brought into Ivory Coast by Dutch-based multinational trading company Trafigura, killed 16 people and caused an estimated 95,000 people to seek medical attention. Getty Images logo Getty Images 69 months ago

A civil protection member of Ivory Coast points at a site polluted with toxic waste from the Probo Koala ship at the Akouedo district in Abidjan on September 19, 2006. In mid-August 2006 the Probo Koala ship unloaded in Abidjan more than 500 tonnes of a highly toxic mixture of oil residue and caustic soda used to rinse out the ship's tanks. The trial of 12 people charged with involvement in the 2006 toxic waste pollution scandal in the Ivory Coast is set to go ahead on September 29, 2008 according to court documents. The toxic sludge, brought into Ivory Coast by Dutch-based multinational trading company Trafigura, killed 16 people and caused an estimated 95,000 people to seek medical attention.