Canada is dumping tons of garbage in the Philippines
A massive shipment of Canadian trash is causing a stink in the Philippines, where local activists say it was illegally offloaded, according to the Inquirer.
The 50 industrial containers of household trash, including kitchen garbage and used adult diapers, first arrived in the Philippines in 2013, and have been sitting in the port of Manila until a few days ago when, the Inquirer reports, 29 of the containers were taken to be dumped at a landfill in another part of the country.
The owner of the recycling company that shipped the containers, Chronic Inc., has denied all allegations that he sent household trash. In the Toronto Star, Jim Makris said his shipment contained only recyclables, mostly plastics, sent to be processed at a local recycling plant he owns. The Toronto Star reported:
He added that “anyone with a brain” could see that it makes no sense to ship garbage overseas. It costs $40 per tonne to dump garbage in Canada, but $80 per tonne to ship his recycling material to the Philippines, he said.
Local environmentalists and politicians are not happy that the Canadian waste seems to be staying in the Philippines. “I will not tolerate this matter sitting down,” Leah Paquiz, a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, said in a statement to the National Post in October last year. “Pick up your garbage Canada, and show us the decency that we so rightfully deserve as a nation. My motherland is not a garbage bin of Canada.”