The garbage from Australia will have to be shipped back even if the Environment department has categorized it as engineered fuel used by cement factories, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said Monday.
“By the way, the garbage from Australia [is] going back, too. I don’t give a flying f**k that it is used in making cement,” Locsin said in his Twitter account.
“If that is so, cement makers should formally import the ingredient so it goes nowhere but to their plants.”
The Bureau of Customs last month intercepted seven container vans with shredded municipal waste from Australia at the Mindanao Container Terminal in Misamis Oriental.
The shipment was declared as processed engineered fuel or PEF and municipal waste, and its consignee was Holcim Philippines Inc.
Holcim said the PEF was made from processed trash and was being used as an alternative fuel in producing cement.
“For us, this is really not garbage. This is low-grade fuel, this is processed engineered fuel,” Alan Cuyno, technical manager of Holcim Philippines Inc., said.
Reports indicated that the intercepted shipment was formally imported by Holcim.
Information received by the House of Representatives in its recent hearings showed that the trash was imported by Holcim. However, Customs contested the declaration it was Processed Engineered Fuel, saying it was domestic waste based on its smell. The Environment department said it could test to confirm.
Locsin said the Department of Foreign Affairs will not “sign off” on the matter.
“DFA won’t sign off on it. Not our business,” he said.
“It becomes our business when those whose business it is f*ck up again; then we pick the sh*t and send it back. But I certainly won’t sign off on sh*t.”