On April 23, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to wage war against Canada over 103 container vans filled with 2,450 tons of trash that have been shipped to the Philippines in several batches six years ago. This issue has sparked tensions between fellow countries alike.
On May 16, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo sent warnings to Canada after it missed President Duterte’s May 15th deadline for the extraction of their waste. Six days later, Panelo explained the Chief Executive’s distress over Canada’s lack of response regarding the matter during a press briefing.
"President Duterte is so upset about the inordinate delay of Canada in shipping back its containers of garbage. We are extremely disappointed with Canada's neither-here-nor-there pronouncements on the matter. Obviously, Canada is not taking this issue nor our country seriously. The Filipino people are gravely insulted about Canada treating this country as a dump site,” he said.
“As a result of this offending delay,” Panelo said, “the President has instructed the appropriate office to look for a private shipping company which will bring back Canada’s trash to the latter’s jurisdiction. The government of the Philippines will shoulder all expenses and we do not mind the same. If Canada will not accept the trash, we will leave the same within the territorial waters or 12 nautical miles out to sea from the baseline of any of their country’s shores,” he strictly added.
At least 103 containers of household garbage, containing plastic bottles, bags, newspapers and other hazardous wastes including adult diapers, were illegally dumped in the Philippines by an Ontario company between 2013 to 2014.
Most of these containers remained in two ports in Manila and Northern Subic Freeport, sparking protests from environmentalists. Officials say the containers were falsely labeled by a private firm as recyclable plastic scraps.
Finally, on May 30, MV Bavaria, a cargo ship hired by the Canadian government arrived in the Subic Freeport, wherein it was loaded with 69 containers of rubbish and sent back to dock at a port in the outskirts of Vancouver.
On February 2, trash from Hong Kong was dumped at the Mindanao Container Terminal in Cagayan de Oro City. Thankfully, this was returned to its sender as well; it included 25 tons of plastic and electronic waste.
However, these two countries aren’t the only ones who’ve tried to dump their trash in the Philippines. According to Patrick Cristobal, a senior environmental management specialist for hazardous waste at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Japan, South Korea, and Australia have all tried to dump trash in the Philippines.
Kaka Corral says “they’re simply part of a trend of powerful countries moving their garbage to developing nations that have lower environmental standards.”
Why is the Philippines prone to these scenarios?
Greenpeace Philippines country director Lea Guerrero told Coconuts Manila that developing countries are prone to waste shipments simply because most of these countries have weaker regulations and environmental standards compared to developed countries.
Additionally, developing countries have increasingly become the destination for garbage exports ever since China, who formerly was the biggest importer of recyclable waste, closed its doors to waste importation upon enacting the “National Sword” policy on January 2018, which would ban most materials from making it to the country’s recycling processors.
On July 17, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection announced that it would no longer accept 24 types of solid waste due to contamination, several of which are plastics, including PETs and PVCs. This was followed by 32 other types of solid wastes on April 2018, which included stainless steel scraps.
Chinese officials believe that the materials they received include damaging contaminants that have been mixed in recycled materials and polluting the land and water.
Now that China has limited the amount of waste it accepts, developed nations like the United States have been turning toward other Southeast Asian countries to accept recyclable materials.
However, some of these countries have been refusing the onslaught of incoming trash, due to the means exporters illegally ship and improperly relabel their toxic wastes. Most of which are worried that the environmental setbacks are far greater than the benefits of receiving exported trash.
During the last few weeks of May, Malaysia has begun returning the trash it has received from countries like Australia and Japan.
"These containers were illegally brought into the country under false declaration and other offenses which clearly violates our environmental law," Yeo Bee Yin, Malaysian Minister of Energy, Technology, Science, Environment and Climate Change, said.
After much of what happened, environmentalists hope that countries begin recycling their own trash, rather than relying on other countries to process their own wastes.
Story by Bea Chin
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