EcoWaste Coalition Honors Customs Official with “Environmental Justice Award” for Re-Exporting Illegal Waste Shipments to South Korea 20.01.2021 - Quezon City, Philippines - Pressenza IPA 20 January 2021, Quezon City. The waste and pollution watchdog group EcoWaste Coalition presented the “Environmental Justice Award” to Bureau of Customs-Region 10 District Collector John Simon in a virtual ceremony held yesterday. Simon, a customs official with 31 years of distinguished service in the government sector, is the lone recipient of the group’s first-ever “Environmental Justice Award” coinciding with the national observance of “Zero Waste Month” this January. According to Eileen Sison, President of the EcoWaste Coalition, Simon is recognized “for his exemplary leadership, unfaltering dedication and focused action to protect public health and the environment from hazardous wastes from overseas, particularly in relation to the successful re-exportation in 2019-2020 of some 7,408 metric tons of illegal waste shipments from South Korea.”