Six years after it discovered tons of wastes dumped in the country’s ports, the Philippines has bid goodbye to the Canadian waste.
Sixty-nine container vans were loaded onto M/V Bavaria starting Thursday evening and ended at about 3 a.m. on Friday, according to Greenpeace.
After the departure of Canadian wastes from the port of Subic on Friday morning, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has withdrawn his order for the recall of the Filipino ambassador and consuls to Canada.
From 2013 to 2014, a total of 103 shipping containers from Canada were intercepted in the Port of Manila containing mixed and hazardous waste, based on the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste and Control Act of 1990 (Republic Act 6969).
According to Greenpeace, the importation of the shipment violated the Basel Convention, as the contents of the cargo vans were misdeclared as ‘recyclable’.
While the return of Canada’s waste is a positive development, only a little more than half (69 containers) of the original waste is being shipped back; 26 containers were already landfilled in the Philippines at the time when Canada disowned responsibility for the shipment; the other eight containers were also disposed of locally.
Aside from the controversial Canadian waste, shipments containing garbage from South Korea were discovered in October 2018, Greenpeace said in a statement.
Video credit: Department of Foreign Affairs
After campaigns from environmental groups in both the Philippines and South Korea, the Philippine government and its South Korean counterparts agreed to ship back part of the waste shipment in January 2019. The remaining 5,176.9 metric tonnes of waste are still in Misamis Oriental, awaiting repatriation.
In May 2019, the entry of wastes coming from Australia and Hong Kong in Mindanao Container Terminal became public.
The groups are also calling on the Philippine government to ban all waste shipments from entering the Philippines, and to stand up for Philippine sovereignty by telling developed countries that the Philippines is not a garbage dump.
Source and photo credit: Greenpeace
