BOC probes deeper into suspected waste imports in the Port of Subic
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—THE Bureau of Customs in the Port of Subic (Boc-subic) will conduct further investigation of container vans suspected to contain waste materials from the United States following confirmation of the illegal cargoes here early this week.
Subic Customs Collector Marites Martin said on Thursday that all 30 container vans comprising two shipments of waste materials will be inspected to determine the volume and actual contents.
Martin and Environment Undersecretary Benny Antiporda inspected five container vans at the New Container Terminal here on Thursday afternoon and presented plastic and hazardous waste materials that were found in the shipment declared as old corrugated cartons for re- pulping.
The opened containers revealed what could be bales of waste materials held together by cardboard and bound with plastic twine. Bits of plastic wrap, aluminum container, and paper, however, could be seen sticking out of the baled materials.
The materials also emitted some foul odor.
Antiporda said the unsegregated waste matters found in the container vans, including some face masks, were enough proof that the shipments were in violation of the law.
The Subic Customs office raised an alert over the two shipments on Saturday, October 17, based on information from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ( DENR) that said shipments were suspected to be in violation of Customs law in relation to DENR Administrative Order 201322, or the Revised Procedures and Standards for the Management of
Hazardous Wastes.
The shipments consisting of 30 container vans said to be filled with old corrugated cartons for re-pulping, were transported from the United States via the container ship Ever Lyric and consigned to Bataan 2020 Inc., a paper manufacturer with a mill in Samal, Bataan.
Initial examination of five container vans led BOC- Subic to declare that the shipment contained “prohibited waste materials which were illegally imported.”
BOC- Subic then said it will undertake further inventory “to
ascertain the volume and actual contents of the shipment.”
The recent discovery of waste materials in import shipments here elicited a flashback to a similar situation years ago, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma said in a news statement on Thursday.
“It was just last year — on May 31, 2019—that we successfully banished from our shores 69 garbageladen containers from Canada, of which 67 had stayed here in Subic in their putrid condition for several
years,” Eisma recalled.
“We don’t want that sordid chapter in our history to happen again,” she added.
Eisma said that as manager of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, the SBMA “vehemently denounces this apparent attempt to smuggle waste materials into the country and likewise deplores the use of the Subic Bay Freeport as a transit point for this illegal trade.”
“We cannot, and should not, condone the dumping of wastes from any country into our shores,” Eisma added.