Members of the environmental group EcoWaste troop to the South Korean embassy to urge their government to act swiftly to ensure a speedy return of tons of garbage imported from South Korea that discovered at the Mindanao international container terminal.
/Inquirer photo
An environmental advocacy group on Thursday urged the government of South Korea to “act decisively” in ensuring the speedy return of tons of garbage it dumped into the country.
At a peaceful protest held on Thursday outside the Embassy of the Republic of South Korea, the EcoWaste Coalition said they submitted a letter to Ambassador Han Dong-ma appealing to the South Korea government to act with urgency in addressing the garbage dumping in Mindanao.
“We strongly believe that the Philippines, a sovereign country, deserves not to be treated as a garbage dump.
In fact, we believe no country or community should be debased as a dumping ground for garbage,” Ecowaste Coalition President Eileen Sison said in a statement.
The group drew attention to the 5,100 metric tons of plastic and other waste materials, including used dextrose tubes, diapers, batteries, bulbs and electronic equipment dumped at the Mindanao International Container Terminal (MICT) in Misamis Oriental and the hundreds of giant bales of garbage found at a Cagayan de Oro warehouse.
The group also expressed fear that developed countries like South Korea turn to low and middle-income countries to dump their plastic wastes.
“We are concerned that plastics that are difficult or are costly to recycle in your country are being dumped in low- and middle-income countries such as the Philippines in the guise of ‘recycling,’” the group’s National Coordinator Aileen Lucero said.