2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump by Greek shipping company Prime Marine Management Inc. and chartered by Trafigura. Trafigura desired to strip the sulfurous products out of the coker gasoline to produce naphtha, which could then be sold. Instead of paying a refinery to do this work, Trafigura used an obsolete process on board the ship called "caustic washing", in which the coker gasoline was treated with caustic soda. The process worked, and the resulting naphtha was resold for a reported profit of . The waste resulting from the caustic washing would typically include hazardous substances such as sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfide and phenols. On 2
History of Ivory Coast areas northward from the West African coast. Ivory Coast, like the rest of West Africa, was subject to these influences, but the absence of sheltered harbors along its coastline prevented Europeans from establishing permanent trading posts. Seaborne trade, therefore, was irregular and played only a minor role in the penetration and eventual conquest by Europeans of Ivory Coast. The slave trade, in particular, had little effect on the peoples of Ivory Coast. A profitable trade in ivory, which gave the area its name, was carried out during the seventeenth century, but it brought about such a decline in elephants that