Canada-Philippine trash wars heat up

Two Filipino militant lawmakers have asked the House of Representatives to investigate the dumping of at least 20 container vans containing trash from Canada into a sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac after they were left at a Manila port in 2013.
In House Resolution 2220, Bayan Muna party-list Reps. Neri Colmenares and Carlos Isagani Zarate called on the House Committee on Ecology to probe the dumping of the Canadian trash shipment, which has been opposed by Capas residents and their mayor, TJ Rodriguez.
Colmenares called for a complete and immediate stop in the dumping of "toxic imported garbage" in Philippine landfills as he slammed the government for failing to demand its return to Canada.
"This is the height of insult and callousness when our own government allows another country to use our lands as its own garbage dump. This is tantamount to an affront to our national sovereignty. How pliable is President Aquino to the Canadian government for agreeing to such a trashy deal?” he said.
The lawmaker, who leads the progressive Makabayan bloc in the House, noted that the Philippines and Canada are signatories to the Basel Convention on the Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal.
He said Canada violated the convention when it dumped its trash into the Philippines when they were duty bound to reduce the movement of hazardous waste between countries.
Earlier members of the party-list group picketed the gates of the Department of the Environment and National Resources (DENR) to oppose the dumping of the container vans containing trash from Canada. The protesters dumped symbols of the Canadian government, President Aquino, and the DENR seal in a trash bin labeled “nabubulok” or biodegradable.
For his part, Zarate noted that Aquino seemed to have been “terribly browbeaten” during his recent state visit to Canada into accepting foreign trash instead of demanding their return to the country of origin.
He also criticized the DENR for claiming the trash from Canada does not contain toxic materials when a Waste Analysis and Characterization Study (WACS) it conducted a year ago. Clearly showed the garbage heap is a mix of kitchen waste, broken bottles, household residuals, and even used electronic waste.
"We urge the local government of Tarlac to continue asserting its authority and prohibit the continued dumping of these garbage,” Zarate said.
Last week, the Philippine government decided to dump the 27 container vans containing waste materials from Canada in the Capas landfill after they remained idle for almost two years.
The 27 were part of the 50 container vans of mixed waste material that arrived at the Port of Manila starting June 2013 and were intercepted by the Bureau of Customs. They were misdeclared by Canadian exporter Chronic Inc. as "assorted scrap plastic materials for recycling."
Rodriguez, however, objected to the move, saying the dumping of the trash did not have the town council’s approval.