Philippines sends back 2,676 tons of trash to South Korea

MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has sent another batch of trash back to South Korea after they were illegally shipped in the Philippines, joining other Southeast Asian countries in pushing back against international trash exports.

In a statement Wednesday, the Department of Finance (DOF), the BOC’s mother agency, said some 2,676 metric tons of waste materials that had been stored at the PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority premises in Misamis Oriental since 2018 were recently returned to South Korea.

The garbage was loaded into 151 forty-footer containers. They form part of the 5,176.91 metric tons of trash that South Korea promised to transport back, the DOF said.

The waste materials, exported to the country in July 2018, consist of plastic synthetic flakes that were illegally imported by Cebu-based Verde Soko Philippines Industrial Corp. 

The first batch was shipped back to Korea on Jan. 25, 2019, and was followed by another shipment on January 15 this year. A third batch consisting of 50 containers was returned to Korea last March 21. 

According to Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero, there are 2,500 metric tons of wastes that still need to be repatriated to South Korea. They were scheduled to be returned to Korea by end-March but authorities had to push back the shipment date after Luzon was placed on a lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“Rest assured that the Bureau will undertake all the necessary means, within the bounds of law, in order to expedite the re-exportation of these wastes,” Guerrero said.

The Philippines is the latest Southeast Asian country to protest against developed nation’s trash shipments.

Last year, the Philippines began sending back containers full of garbage to Canada, ending a row that strained the two country’s ties.

Manila and Seoul are signatories to the Basel Convention, which aimed at reducing movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of toxic waste from developed to less developed countries.