Group urges China to probe trash shipment from Hong Kong
MANILA, Philippines — China should investigate the entry of mixed plastic waste shipment from Hong Kong, environmental watch group EcoWaste Coalition said as it reiterated the Philippines is not a dumping site of trash from other countries.
While the issue of garbage from Canada remains unresolved, an attempt to bring mixed plastic scraps, shredded electronics and residual waste materials from Hong Kong was discovered by the Bureau of Customs.
“We denounce this latest attempt to bring into the country over 25 tons of mixed plastic waste from Hong Kong amid our nation’s ongoing efforts to send back similar illegal waste shipments from Canada and South Korea,” Aileen Lucero, EcoWaste Coalition national coordinator, said Friday.
Lucero said the move was “truly ironic,” noting that China closed its doors for plastic waste imports from overseas in 2018. China’s ban on plastic waste imports caused the surge of trash shipment to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
“We therefore request the Chinese government to seriously look into this matter,” she said.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China.
According to EcoWaste Coalition, the shipment from Hong Kong arrived at the Mindanao Container Terminal in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental on Jan. 2, 2019. The cargo was shipped by Hin Yuen Tech. Env. Limited and was consigned to Crowd Win Industrial Limited.
The container was said to be a “trial shipment,” which means that if one container successfully enters a port, there will be 70 other containers that will be delivered to the country.
Bureau of Customs-Northern Mindanao said an alert order and a warrant of seizure and detention were issued on February 19 and March 7 for the shipment for misdeclaration and lack of permit.
The Customs will soon ship out the garbage from Hong Kong.
Trash dumping in the Philippines
Hong Kong joins the list of foreign lands that illegally brought garbage into the country.
The first batch of garbage illegally brought into the Philippines from South Korea arrived in the East Asian nation last February 4—around seven months after the waste shipments arrived in Misamis Oriental last year.
The South Korean government committed to help ship back the remaining 5,176.9 metric tons of garbage.
In a press briefing Thursday, Malacañang said the government is “offended” by the reported dumping of garbage from Australia. Holcim Philippines, the consignee of the shipment, reportedly said the container vans contained trash declared as processed engineered fuel.
Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo, in the same press briefing, rejected Canada’s latest move of hiring a private company to repatriate the 69 containers of waste illegally dumped to the country years ago.
He said President Rodrigo Duterte will not allow the process to extend until next month.
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