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Inter Press Service

Still, the fact that the discovery on Nov 24 of the 124 vans of hazardous wastes led to such high-level, formal representation is significant.

In a meeting Monday between a Philippine government committee and the Japanese embassy, Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon said he requested Tokyo to ship the wastes back to Japan.

Siazon said a government investigation showed the 40-foot vans contained hazardous wastes, mostly ''clinical wastes'' from Japanese hospitals and medical centres.

Now impounded, they are classified as Y-1 material under the Basel Convention, which bars the export of hazardous waste from industrialised to developing countries.

''This case makes an utter mockery of the Basel Convention which is now celebrating its 10th anniversary,'' Von Hernandez, Greenpeace toxics campaigner for South-east Asia, said in an interview.

''The honorable response from the Japanese government is to take back this waste now and force the Japanese exporter to shoulder the liabilities associated with its return and disposal in Japan,'' he explained.

Japanese ambassador to the Philippines Yoshihisa Ara said Tokyo is committed to abiding by the Basel Convention. The Japanese embassy also wants to make a visual inspection of the vans and get more information.

''Japan does not want to be known as a hazardous waste- exporting country,'' Siazon said.

To many, the discovery of the hazardous-waste shipment shows how difficult it is to enforce a ban on toxic trade despite the intetrnational legal instruments that exist, given the economic impetus behind it.

''We came out in favour of globalisation, but we never imagined that it would include the globalisation of garbage and large-scale exportation of possibly infectious and toxic trash,'' argued the English-language daily 'Philippine Daily Inquirer' Tuesday.

Under the Basel Convention, Siazon said these wastes should be shipped back to the country of origin within 30 days.

Among the wastes found by the Philippines environment department were needles for intravenous injections, medical rubber hose and tubes, used adult and baby diapers, used sanitary napkins, discarded intravenous syringes used in blood letting and dextrose, garments, bandages.

There were also electronic equipment, PVC plastic materials mixed with industrial and household wastes, styropor packaging materials, sacks, plastic sheets, PVC pipes, plastic packaging materials, paper, plastic food packaging materials, and other hospital wastes.

The shipment was declared by the consignee, Sinsei Enterprises, as recyclable'' waste, until a visual inspection showed otherwise. It had also undergone pre-inspection by the Swiss firm Societe Generale de Surveillance, another focus of the Philippine probe.

Hernandez said this is not the first time that toxic wastes from Japan have been brought to the Philippines in the guise of ''recycling''.

In 1994, lead acid batteries from industrialised countries, including Japan, were reported to have been legally imported for recycling by battery firms. This was the despite the threat poised to the environment and human health by such recycling, which is no longer done in industrialised countries.

Likewise, old Japanese ships containing have hazardous materials have also been imported and recycled in the central province of Cebu, he said.

Shipbreaking has been identified by activities as another form of working with hazardous waste.

''It looks like there's a syndicate behind this operation,'' Hernandez said of the Nov 24 shipment.

Japanese authorities are also looking into how the exporting firm, Ygengaisha Nisso of Tochigi, was able to send the waste shipment out. The company has pending cases of illegal dumping of wastes.

''The shady and criminal background of the company officials which sent us this hazardous trash makes it all the more imperative for the Philippine government to take action now and use all bilateral and international avenues available to force the return of the wastes to Japan,'' Hernandez said.

The Fifth Conference of the parties of the Basel Convention is now taking place in Basel, Switzerland.

In 1995, under strong pressure from the green lobby, the convention adopted a ratified a major amendment in 1995 called the Basel Ban to prohibit the wealthy member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from exporting hazardous wastes to non-OECD states.

Hernandez also called on the Philippine legislature to ratify the Basel Ban and ''send a strong signal to foreign waste traders that the Philippines will no longer tolerate being used as dumping ground for hazardous wastes even under the guise of recycling''.

Siazon also recommended to the environment department undertake a chemical investigation be conducted by the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute to determine if some of the wastes are radioactive.