Between March and June 2006, three cargoes of 28,000 tonnes of Coker Naphtha were loaded aboard the Probo Koala, a merchant vessel owned by Trafigura. Caustic soda and other chemicals are used to clean Coker Naphtha to turn it into gasoline. This Coker Naphtha cleanup process produced 500 tons of toxic waste. Trafigura subsequently faced the problem of how to safely dispose of all this toxic material. Amsterdam Port Services, a Dutch waste management company, agreed to process and dispose of the waste. While the company was carrying out the waste transfer, an unpleasant odor spread through the city. The company decided to test the product it would be dealing with. Amsterdam's port services discovered that the toxic waste was much more polluted than they thought, requiring more complicated and time-consuming treatment. The company wanted more money to treat the toxic waste, but Trafigura didn't want to pay the asking price. This left Trafigura without any company that could dispose of its toxic substances