In an ongoing saga that began over a year ago, groups and politicians in the Philippines are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of action on 50 shipping containers of waste from Canada.
The 40-foot container vans were supposed to contain plastic for recycling that came from blue boxes in Canada, but instead are full of various waste materials, some of it deemed hazardous.
Officially, the 50 containers remain at the Port of Manila where they arrived between June and August 2013, shipped by Ontario-based Chronic Inc. However, a coalition of local environmental and public health groups allege that 16 of the containers were shipped to another port last month.
In January 2014, video recorded by local media when the containers were opened in the presence of officials from the Philippine Bureau of Customs showed that they held items such as plastic bottles with liquid, household waste, and used adult diapers.
At the time, customs deputy commissioner Ariel Nepomuceno said the contents of the containers “could pose biohazard risks for our people.” The event was covered by Canadian media at the time.
The coalition of groups, as well as politicians and residents, have grown frustrated with the lack of action to remove the container vans. They want them returned to Canada.
“We have exhausted all possible avenues—spoke with our government agencies and the Canadian embassy in Manila—to expedite the re-exportation to Canada, the port of origin, but today, the vans are still lodged in our ports, leaking and emitting a foul stench,” said Abigail Aguilar, toxics campaigner with Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
The groups say the importation of the waste violates some local laws as well as the Basel Convention, an international treaty to which both Canada and the Philippines are signatories. The convention was intended to reduce the movement of hazardous waste between its 180 signatory nations and contains measures to prevent the transfer of hazardous waste from developed countries to less developed ones.
However, this isn’t the first time that such containers have appeared in the Philippines. In 2001, a similar case emerged concerning 137 containers that were shipped from Japan to Manila. The containers were falsely labelled scrap paper, but similarly contained various waste materials.
‘Unwanted Containers’
Regarding the Canadian case, Eric Gernardo E. Tamayo, minister and consul general for the Philippines Embassy in Ottawa, explains that Canada and the Philippines have been working together “exploring practical solutions” to the situation. The embassy declined to comment about timelines.
“While a case has been filed against the importer and the legal track is being pursued, the risk to health and concerns about congestion at the Port of Manila presented by these unwanted containers are immediate concerns,” Tamayo said by email.
The case has become a political one in the Philippines. In September, Congresswoman Leah Paquiz filed a resolution directing the country’s Committee on Ecology “to investigate the unlawful importation of fifty (50) container vans filled with mixed wastes from Canada.”
A previous resolution filed earlier this year by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago called for similar action.
In a recent press release, Paquiz and several environmental groups said they believe moving the 16 containers to another port is a prelude to distributing the materials into the country’s waste system.
“Clearly, this dumping of wastes in our country is a reflection of our dignity as a nation,” Paquiz said in the release, referring to the contents of the container vans as “garbage.”
The release said the groups fear that allowing the Canadian waste shipment to be disposed of in the Philippines will set a precedent for other countries to follow suit. They allege that the Philippines “is being primed to be the world’s toxic waste dumping site in the guise of ‘green jobs’ for recycling.”
In an effort to draw public attention to the issue, the groups filed an online petition on change.org that garnered 23,600 signatures, more than half of which came from Canadians, according to the release.
Canadian Foreign Affairs officials did not return requests for comment.
Kaven Baker-Voakes is a freelance reporter based in Ottawa.
