Hundreds of bales of garbage from South Korea found in CDO warehouse

A thousand bales of garbage shipped from South Korea were found in a warehouse in Cagayan de Oro City.

In a report on Balitanghali on Monday, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Undersecretary Benny Antiporda said the shipment is in addition to 51 more containers also discovered to have waste inside.

The garbage shipment lacked an import permit.

The DENR said that it is possible the shipment slipped through the Bureau of Customs by misdeclaration. An investigation into the matter is ongoing.

Environmental group EcoWaste Coalition called for the garbage to be returned to South Korea.

"We find this latest incident of plastic waste dumping outrageous and unacceptable," said the group's national coordinator Aileen Lucero.

"It's high time for the Philippines to disallow garbage imports and to demand that developed countries, as well as manufacturers of plastics and other disposable goods, take full responsibility for their products throughout their whole life cycle," she added.

In 2013, 50 containers of waste from Canada were impounded by Philippine customs authorities and left to rot in the ports. — Dona Magsino/BM, GMA News