Philippines ships 69 containers of trash back to Canada in recycling dispute

The Philippines has shipped 69 containers of trash back to Canada following weeks of diplomatic tensions between the two countries, with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte threatening “war” over the waste.

The Philippines alleged that Chronic Plastics, a Canadian company, had shipped the nearly 2,500 tons of trash in 2013 and 2014, saying the shipping containers had been mislabeled as recyclable plastics before they arrived in the Philippines.

In June 2018, the Philippines’s Office of the Ombudsman reportedly ruled the containers illegal, alleging that Chronic Plastics shipped them without import clearances. The office also charged an official in Philippines’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources with graft over the shipment, and it recalled its ambassador to Canada earlier this month after Canada missed a May 15 deadline to address the shipment.{mosads}

In 2016, a court in the Philippines ordered that the trash had to be shipped back to Canada at their expense.

“I’ll give a warning to Canada maybe next week that they better pull that [trash] out,” Duterte said last month, according to CNN Philippines. “We’ll declare war against them, we can handle them anyway.”

The waste will be shipped to Vancouver before the end of June and treated by facility plants there, according to the BBC.

Sean Fraser, Canada’s parliamentary secretary to the environment minister, told the BBC the country has made the shipment a priority in recent weeks. Sixty-nine containers of the garbage was sent on a cargo ship from Subic Bay, north of Manilla.

“This is a demonstration that we’re going to comply with our international obligations to deal with waste that originates in Canada,” Fraser said.

Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr. joked on Twitter on Thursday that he would “miss” the trash.

“I’m crying. I’m gonna miss it so. Never mind. Another Filipino will find a way to import another batch. Boohoohoo,” Locsin tweeted.

I’m crying. I’m gonna miss it so. Never mind. Another Filipino will find a way to import another batch. Boohoohoo. pic.twitter.com/RkdmhHPSdC

— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) May 31, 2019