Japan to take back garbage

Japan to take back garbage

MANILA (DPA): Japan agreed on Thursday to take back 6,000 tons of clinical and household waste illegally imported to the Philippines by a Manila-based Japanese company, after experts determined the garbage was "hazardous".

Experts from Japan's International Trade and Industry Ministry and the Health and Welfare Ministry arrived in Manila on Sunday and conducted an inspection of the trash rotting in the South Harbor for the past four months.

"The Japanese team considers these wastes hazardous under the Basel Convention," Japanese Ambassador to Manila Yoshihisa Ara told a news conference.

The 1989 treaty on The Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, to which Japan and the Philippines are signatory states, prohibits the shipment of hazardous wastes to another state.