Environment Minister Karen Ellemann said the decision was made to allay public fears.

Earlier the opposition said it would introduce an emergency bill aiming to block the first waste shipment, due to leave from Australia on Saturday.

"Due to concerns both in public opinion and on the political stage, I deemed it was not appropriate for the first (waste-filled) ship to leave right now," Ellemann said in a statement.

She stressed that the delivery was being postponed, not cancelled.

The ship was scheduled to arrive in Denmark at the beginning of January.

Ellemann added she would discuss the issue with her Australian counterpart Tony Burke and the Australian explosives manufacturer responsible for the toxic chemicals, Orica.

Danish environmental authorities accepted in June a request to dispose of Orica's 6,100 tonnes of toxic chemicals, stockpiled for decades in Sydney.

There were to be taken to a treatment facility in Nyborg in central Denmark.

Australia has no facility to destroy the Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) chemicals, a by-product of solvents made by the company between 1964 and 1991.

In June, Ellemann said her country had to accept the waste because of treaty obligations. Danish company Kommunekemi won a lucrative contract to ship and treat the waste.

Denmark "has the obligation to help other countries when they are confronted with an unsolvable problem," she said at the time.

Danish authorities required the waste to be transported in double-hulled ships, with each container equipped with a GPS to allow its movements to be tracked.

earlier related report
China ban keeps up to 100 billion bags out of landfills
Beijing (AFP) Dec 2, 2010 - As many as 100 billion plastic shopping bags have been kept out of landfills in China since authorities ordered supermarkets to stop giving them out for free, a packaging industry group official said.

Dong Jinshi, who had campaigned for the June 2008 nationwide ban on the distribution of free plastic bags, said the order had stopped an estimated 36.5 billion of them ending up in China's landfills each year.

"It's possible that as many as 100 billion plastic shopping bags were kept out since the introduction of the law," Dong, vice-chairman of the International Food Packaging Association in Beijing, told AFP late Wednesday.

An estimated three billion plastic bags were being used in China daily before the government ordered supermarkets throughout the nation to charge a fee for each bag.

China -- which last week admitted it is the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter -- has some of the world's worst water and air pollution after rapid growth over the past 30 years triggered widespread environmental damage.

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