Philippines is not Canada’s “trash bin”

Environmentalists are outraged that a court order to return illegal waste from Canada that was shipped to the Philippines has gone unheeded for more than 14 months.

“Over 14 months have already gone by and the court order remains unheeded,” said Aileen Lucero, national coordinator of the EcoWaste Coalition.

Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 1 Judge Tita Bughao Alisuag ordered last June 30 the shipping back of the wastes to Canada at the expense of the importer.

A press release issued by the customs bureau said the Department of Justice (DOJ) is set to file a motion for the execution of the order when the Manila RTC conducts another hearing on the case on September 30.

The court order covers 50 x 40 containers that had assorted plastic materials consigned to Chronic Plastics Incorporated. There have been 103 container vans of Canadian wastes on Philippine ports since the first batch arrived in July 2013.

Though the shipments were declared by Chronic Plastics as recyclable plastic scrap materials, an inspection revealed they were in fact used mixed and unsorted plastic, household garbage and even used adult diapers.

The said containers, parked at the Subic and Manila International Container Yards, have caused port congestion, and posed hazards to public health. The BOC has also incurred expenses for holding them.

Canada had said it does not have a law that would force it to take back the garbage, and asked the Philippines to dispose of them locally.

The current president, Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still mayor of Davao City in July 2015, called on then President Benigno Aquino III to protest Canada’s trash in the Philippines.

Aquino did not raise the issue in his bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2015, but the premier was finally confronted with the question during a press conference at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Manila in November that year.

Trudeau was non-committal on the call of Filipino environmental groups for his country to bring back the container vans of trash illegally shipped to the Philippines.

The court emphasized the Philippines is not a “trash bin” and said the incident “should not be made a precedent for other countries to follow.”

The long-drawn-out Canadian garbage scandal began about three years ago, when the trash, which is all sourced from the Vancouver area, was shipped to Manila in early 2013 by Ontario’s Chronic Inc.

Although the containers were labelled “scrap plastic materials for recycling,” inspectors with the Philippine Bureau of Customs instead reported finding the containers stuffed with rotting household waste and soggy paper.

The discovery incensed Philippine politicians and environmental groups, who accused Canada of pawning off its garbage on poorer countries.

The shipment was initially described as recyclable material, but Greenpeace reports that the containers are also holding hospital waste, used adult diapers, and sanitary napkins.

Leachate from these containers, or liquid that has percolated through a solid, threaten the surrounding environment, posing great risk to human health in the area where it is being held.

An open petition on Change.org urging the Canadian government to assume full responsibility of the waste shipment already has 25,000 signatures and expects more.