Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Acting Secretary Jim O. Sampulna on Wednesday threw his support behind calls for the ratification of the Basel Amendment to prohibit the dumping of hazardous waste from developed countries to developing countries like the Philippines.
Sampulna believes that once ratified, it would effectively address the illegal traffic of imported hazardous waste into the Philippines.
On Tuesday, the group Ban Toxics warned that the Philippines continue to risk becoming the world’s dumping ground unless it ratifies the Basel Ban Amendment. The statement was issued following the commencement of the second segment of the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions’ Triple Conference of Parties, hoping to press the government to act with dispatch and finally ratify the amendment to the treaty.
“In previous years, we have strongly fought against the import of hazardous wastes from countries who regarded our country as their dumpsites. Ratifying the Basel Ban Amendment will protect the Philippines from being a destination of hazardous wastes again,” Sampulna said in a news statement.
In 2019, the DENR through its Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) had successfully coordinated the return of 69 international container units of mixed wastes to Canada, which were illegally imported to the Philippines after being declared as waste plastics for recycling.
The DENR-EMB, in cooperation with the Bureau of Customs, had also successfully repatriated 6,400 metric tons of mixed wastes in Misamis Oriental to South Korea in 2020.
The Basel Ban Amendment, adopted by the parties to the Basel Convention, would restrain the member-states of the European Union, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and Liechtenstein, from exporting hazardous wastes either for recovery, treatment, or disposal to developing countries or countries with economies in transition.
The Philippines is a Party to the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal.
The treaty was ratified by Congress on October 21, 1993, and entered into force on January 19, 1994, but the country has yet to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment.
Among the wastes covered in the Ban Amendment include those listed in Annex I, Annex II, and Annex VIII (List A) of the Basel Convention such as used lead-acid batteries, electrical and electronic equipment, and metal-bearing sludge.
Non-OECD countries such as the Philippines are allowed to export hazardous wastes to OECD countries if it has no existing capacity to treat and dispose of the specific hazardous waste in an environmentally sound manner.
The DENR-EMB may request to the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Convention that the national version of the Ban Amendment will exempt certain hazardous wastes such as used lead-acid batteries, which are being utilized by the local recycling industry.