Ties restored as Canada takes back garbage

MANILA, Philippines — The relationship between the Philippines and Canada has become cordial again as the ship carrying tons of garbage rejected by Manila arrived in Vancouver over the weekend, Malacañang said yesterday.

Cargo ship Anna Maersk, which carried 69 containers of Canadian trash dumped in the Philippines six years ago, arrived in Greater Vancouver last Saturday, according to reports.

The garbage would be sent to a waste-to-energy facility, Canadian officials were quoted by reports as saying.

“Eh, siguro cordial na ulit (Perhaps, it’s cordial again),” presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a radio interview when asked to describe the ties between Manila and Ottawa following the arrival of the garbage-hauling vessel in Vancouver.

“’Di na basura ang relasyon (The relationship is no longer garbage),” Panelo added.

Last April, President Duterte directed the Bureau of Customs to return to Canada containers of garbage sent to the Philippines in 2013 and accused Ottawa of turning the Philippines into a dumpsite. The Philippine leader even threatened to go to war if Canada refused to take back the trash, which were reportedly mislabeled as recyclable plastics.

The shipment actually contained a mixture of paper, plastics, electronic and household waste, including kitchen trash and diapers, although Philippine law prohibits imports of mixed plastic and household trash.

To show that it is serious in demanding the return of the garbage, the Duterte administration had recalled the diplomats assigned in Canada and prohibited its officials from traveling to Ottawa.

Canada missed a May 15 deadline to repatriate the rubbish, but then made arrangements soon thereafter to move it back to Canadian soil. Anna Maersk eventually sailed for Vancouver, prompting the Philippines to order its diplomats recalled from Canada to return to their posts.

The trash will be incinerated at a waste-to-energy facility, local officials said.

“We committed with the Philippines and we’re working closely with them,” Canada’s Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told reporters on Thursday.

Shocking

Global concern over plastic pollution has been spurred by shocking images of waste-clogged rivers in Southeast Asia and accounts of dead sea creatures found with kilos of refuse in their stomachs.

For years, China had received the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, but closed its doors to foreign refuse last year in an effort to clean up its environment.

Huge quantities of waste plastic have since been redirected to Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia and – to a lesser degree – the Philippines.

In November 2016, Canada amended its regulations on waste disposal to prevent incidents like the one with the Philippines.

Canadian exporters now need a permit to export hazardous waste and can only obtain it if the other country consents to the import, Jenn Gearey, a spokeswoman for the Canadian environment ministry, said via email.

Even so, challenges remain.

In May, Malaysian officials criticized Canada after a shipping container filled with contaminated plastic bags from major Canadian grocery chains was shipped to Kuala Lumpur by a private company.

Canada produces more waste per capita than other countries with comparable levels of economic development, ranging from the United States to Japan, according to a study by the Conference Board of Canada.

The majority of it ends up in landfills.

Environmental advocates argue that developed countries should stop exporting their trash and figure out how to handle it domestically.

“The way forward is to drastically reduce the amount of waste we generate, especially plastic waste,” Vito Buonsante, plastics program manager at Environmental Defense in Toronto, said. – AFP