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.