A movement bidding good riddance to bad trash is growing across South East Asia, and it should spark an international reckoning with how we have been dealing with plastic waste, recycling, and responsibility.
China closed its doors in 2018 to nearly a million tons of mixed plastic waste shipments, and with it, the inevitable toxic pollution to land, air, and groundwater that comes with plastic waste. All plastics contain toxic additives, many of which have negative health impacts. In the wake of China’s decision, the developed waste exporting nations set their plastic recycling on course to other South East Asian countries that were soon overwhelmed by the massive trashing.
In May, world governments gave developing countries a tool to resist the deluge of plastic mixed waste shipments through the UN Basel Convention. The US is not a signatory to the treaty, yet attempted to block the decision. The US obstruction failed, and 184 of the world’s governments created new regulations that require waste exporting countries to declare the content of mixed waste shipments and enables receiving countries to refuse plastic waste imports.
(Quezon City) Environmental and health groups lauded the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for issuing a circular prohibiting the manufacture, importation and distribution of baby feeding bottles and sippy cups containing Bisphenol A (BPA), an industrial chemical that is commonly used in polycarbonate plastic.
(Environmental Health and Justice Group Urges South Korea to Remove Their Remaining Wastes in Mindanao)
Friday, 02 August 2019
Quezon City. The environmental health and justice group EcoWaste Coalition today pushed the government of South Korea to act on the 5,177 tons of illegal waste exports that continue to languish in Mindanao for over a year now despite repeated assurances from Seoul to take them back “as soon as possible.”
Investigative news reporters at Korean media outlet, Hankyoreh, visited nine cities in India, Indonesia, and Vietnam and surveyed more than 120 workers at mobile phone factories over a 70-day period to develop an investigative series they call, “Global Samsung: A report on unsustainable labor practices.” The series asks questions about the life and work of company workers in Asian countries that host its major bases of production. The series assesses Samsung Electronics’ sustainability as a top-tier global company and describes its results as “unpleasant truths.”
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Environmental groups called on Tuesday for Southeast Asian countries to ban waste imports from developed countries to help tackle a plastic pollution crisis, as regional leaders prepare to meet this week in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — Thailand and its Southeast Asian neighbors are becoming major dumping grounds for the world’s plastic garbage and electronic waste. Environmentalists now want to see a ban on waste imports imposed across ASEAN.
Bangkok - A mountain of plastic and electronic waste appeared on the streets of central Bangkok today as delegates from the 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) arrived in the Thai capital for the start of the 34th ASEAN summit.
Quezon City/Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental. The EcoWaste Coalition and its partner groups in Mindanao lambasted the entry of illegal waste shipments in the region’s ports as “totally unacceptable.”
At the send-off ceremonies for the seized mixed plastic waste shipment from Hong Kong, China, the groups asserted that “Mindanao is not a garbage bin.” To signify their strong opposition against foreign waste dumping, the 30-member NGO delegation brandished a banner reading “PH: We are not the world’s dumpsite.”
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—Following a threat from Malacañang that Manila would cut diplomatic ties with Ottawa, Canada made good on its promise to repatriate tons of Canadian waste illegally exported to the Philippines about six years ago when a ship that would haul them back arrived on Thursday at Subic Bay Freeport to load the cargo.