50 hospitalized due to toxic chemical dumping in Philippines

Some 50 people were hospitalized Tuesday after inhaling toxic chemical illegally dumped into a creek in a province north of Manila by an enterprising industrial waste disposal contractor, police said.

Police said they have arrested the driver of a tanker and his two helpers who spilled used oil and chemicals specialized for making plastic furnitures into Marilao river system in Bulacan province, north of Manila.

Some 3,000 villagers in Marilao town were immediately evacuated from their houses around the river and streams as the air was filled with toxic substances.

Most of the people hospitalized were children and elder people who vomited and suffered from dizziness after inhaling the noxious odor, police said.

Investigators would question the tanker owner and the still unidentified Bulacan-based waste disposal contractor, who allegedly ordered his workers to dump at dusk the substances they collected from factories in Metro Manila and nearby provinces in undisclosed dumpsites, streams, and rivers in Bulacan and other areas of Luzon.

River and air pollution are much higher than international standard of control in Metro Manila and its surrounding provinces as the municipality lacks a properly administered garbage and waste treating system.

Moreover, thousands of people fall sick each year in Manila due to exposure to polluted water, according to local media reports.

The international environmental protection group Greenpeace said in a statement Tuesday that the government "should crack down on these so-called waste handlers who clearly have no capacity to treat and manage toxic waste".

"The Department of Environment itself is to blame for its dubious accreditation system for hazardous waste treatment companies. The fact that dumping incidents like these continue to recur also betrays the government's inability to effectively monitor such hazardous waste management operations," it said.

Source: Xinhua