Cagayan de Oro bishop pushes for ban on foreign wastes

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY –– A leader of the Catholic Church here has expressed support to calls for the government to ban the importation of garbage from other countries.

Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma said there is a need to ratify soonest the Basel Ban Amendment by the Senate, calling for “a hard-line stance” against the transshipment of wastes from other countries.

“I think we don’t need a Basel Ban Amendment if our government officials have the political will,” Ledesma said.

“It should be a general policy of the government not to accept waste matters from other countries,” the prelate told reporters at the sidelines of the 3rd Philippine Environment Summit here.

“This is a good lesson for us, that we should take care of our waste materials and transform them or recycle them into something useful,” he said.

Ledesma called on the national leadership to hasten the return of the tons of trash from South Korea still sitting in an abandoned waste recycling facility in nearby Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental.

Green groups have long advocated for the Senate to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal.

The Basel Convention entered into force in 1992, while the Basel Ban Amendment entered into force on December 5 last year.

The Basel Ban Amendment prohibits the export of hazardous wastes for any reason, including recycling, from rich countries.

Edited by LZB