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 - 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.
(Manila, Philippines; Vancouver, Canada; Gothenburg, Sweden): Sixty-nine shipping containers of illegally dumped Canadian trash set sail for home today after a six-year fight to get Canada to comply with the Basel Convention. In a joint statement, the EcoWaste Coalition, RightOnCanada, and IPEN described the historic departure of the reeking garbage from the Port of Subic north of Manila as a victory for the rule of law, morality and the environment.
New research from a network of anti-toxin NGOs and research centers in Europe, Africa, and Australia has indicated that people living or working around waste combustion sites, in cities in Ghana and Cameroon, are massively exposed to brominated dioxins, chlorinated dioxins, and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
In particular, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in Eggs: Report from Africastates, “An adult eating just one egg from a free-range chicken foraging in Agbogbloshie area would exceed the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) tolerable daily intake (TDI) for chlorinated dioxins by 220-fold.”
UN meeting gives countries the right to refuse unrecyclable, polluting plastics
Friday, 10 May 2019
(Geneva, Switzerland): Governments at the 14th Conference of the Parties (COP14) of the Basel Convention acted to restrict rampant plastic waste exports by requiring countries to obtain prior informed consent before exporting contaminated or mixed plastic waste. A deluge of plastic waste exports from developed countries has polluted developing countries in Southeast Asia after China closed the door to waste imports in 2018.
This brief overview of work by Arnika and IPEN calls into question whether the "Dirty Dozen" chemicals listed in the Stockholm Convention are adequately addressed, and whether sufficient safeguards against the toxic impacts of these POPs exist for human health and the environment. The report includes a list of test results over an 18 year period.