South Korea working to take back trash shipped to Mindanao

MANILA, Philippines — The embassy of South Korea has said they would "take measures to have the waste in question be brought back to Korea as soon as possible" after it was found that a South Korean firm shipped 51 containers of garbage to Mindanao. 

According to a press statement on Thursday, the Korean Ministry of Environment has already initiated legal procedures to take the trash back to South Korea.

"The Korea Customs Service is investigating the exporter in question for the possibility of its exporting of wastes with illegitmately prepared documentation," the embassy also said.

It also pointed out that the exporter's business site found plastic waste mixed with "significant amount of alien materials such as waste, wood, metal and trash that had not gone through an appropriate recycling process."

The Korean Embassy also assured the Philippines that its authorities will facilitate the return of the garbage to have it properly disposed as soon as possible.

The garbage has been sitting at the Mindanao International Container Terminal in Tagaloan, Misamis Oriental since last July.

The statement comes a week after Rep. Fredrick Siao (Iligan) called on South Korea to take back the garbage that had originally been declared as "plastic synthetic flakes."

"We demand that the consignee, Verde Soko Philippines Industrial Corporation and its shipper based in South Korea pay for all expenses on the return of the garbage back to South Korea," Siao said then.

This is the second big case of garbage importation to the Philippines in recent years.

Between 2013 and 2015, close to 100 container vans of garbage were imported to the Philippines from Canada, where it also sat for months before it was discovered.

READ: Trudeau: Canada committed to cleaning up garbage dumping issue

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not as clear about resolving the issue when confronted about it in 2017 during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila said he "committed to [President Rodrigo Duterte] that Canada is working hard to resolve the issue."