Local firms want to export waste

Warning against two years worth of accumulating toxic wastes, local manufacturers want to be allowed to export their waste while government is lumbering over the formulation of the implementing rules and regulations that would allow the safe disposal of hazardous material despite the ban on incinerators under the Clean Air Act.

With the ban on incinerators in effect since 1998, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) said toxic waste has been accumulating over the last two years because government has failed to provide an alternative waste management system.

PCCI vice president for industry Donald Dee told reporters that if government will not open allowances in the Clean Air Act, manufacturers have to be allowed to at least export their waste to countries that have the facility to process them.

According to Dee, debates were going on about Section 20 of the Clean Air Act that prohibited the burning of municipal, biomedical and other hazardous waste materials that emit poisonous and toxic fumes.

As a result, industries that generate hazardous materials as a by-product have to store their waste in the meantime. "I don't even want to venture a guess about how much waste has accumulated over the past two years since this law was enacted," he said.

The quickest solution, Dee said, was to export the waste and pay the receiving country to process them.

"Its not even a matter of cost anymore," he said. "The point is we have it, we want to get rid of it," he said.

However, this would require the government to negotiate the bilateral agreements with these countries because under the Basle Convention, the traffic of hazardous materials from one country to another is not allowed.

A source from the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) said that the Philippines does not have any such bilateral agreement with any country. This solution, however, meant that it would take an even longer process to negotiate for one.

According to the source, the IRR for the Clean Air Act was supposed to have been finalized last month but the debates have dragged on due to disagreements over the terms defined in the law. The source added that the Clean Air Act itself was fundamentally defective.

"First, this law was passed without the corresponding budget to support it. Second, its not realistic to totally ban incinerators," the source explained. "Even the US doesn't ban incinerators, it is encouraged by their Environment Protection.

Agency as part of an integrated solid waste management program for industries." According to the source, incineration was at the end of the waste management line, for materials that can not be segregated, recycled or disposed of using sanitary landfills. "The Clean Air Act did nothing more than raise expectations unrealistically," the source said. "The contradiction can be addressed in the implementing rules but this is where we are stuck."

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), on the other hand, virtually ruled out the possibility of strikig a bilateral agreement with developed countries, saying that companies need in-country processing and disposal.

A document obtained from the environment unit of the Board of Investments indicated that the increasing volume of toxic and hazardous waste has gone beyond the capacity of small sludge and solvent processors who do not have the capacity to handle the present waste levels. "The lack of hazardous waste handling and processing facilities is already affecting investment decisions for plant expansions and new projects," the document said.

The DTI is lobbying for allowing the combustion of toxic and hazardous waste as long as these facilities conform with international standards. Combustion include processes essential to manufacturing such as resmelting of scrap precious metals.

The DTI also said incentives should be provided to local governments that host waste-to-energy facilities. These incentives would include increased internal revenue allotments or shares of stocks in the enterprise that would manage the facility.