Gov’t to send back P10.8-M plastic scraps

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is bent on sending back to Canada 50 40-footer shipping containers of scraps of used plastic, which arrived in the country in the middle of last year, an official said yesterday.

BOC Deputy Commissioner for Enforcement Group (EG) Ariel Nepomuceno yesterday led the opening of five of the 50 shipping containers that arrived at the Manila International Container Port (MICP).

The shipment, which was misdeclared to contain homogenous plastic scraps, or one kind of plastic, was later on discovered to be filled with heterogeneous or an assortment of scrap plastic materials. 

Nepomuceno said the Tariff Code and Department of Environment and Natural Resources rules prohibit the importation of heterogeneous scrap plastic. He noted that the BOC cannot rule out the possibility that the shipment might contain some toxic materials or harbor disease-causing organisms.

The shipment, which has an estimated value of P10.8 million, is consigned to Chronic Plastics, a firm in Valenzuela City. Chronic Inc. in Ontario, Canada was listed as the shipper.

Nepomuceno said they will apply the rules under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, to which Canada and the Philippines are signatories. 

“We have the Basel Convention that says that whoever brought (the shipment) into a country would be responsible in sending back the shipment to where it came from. Just like in a letter, we would do a ‘return to sender,’” he said, adding that the cost would be shouldered by the shipper.

The BOC will also check if the consignee, reportedly engaged in the manufacture of plastic products, has any derogatory record.