Letter on Canadian garbage in the Philippines, from a Canadian citizen
Letter on Canadian garbage in the Philippines, from a Canadian citizen
Dear friends,
Sharing with you a letter sent to several NDP members of Parliament. Hoping for some response/action 🙂
I am a Canadian citizen presently residing in the Philippines. I am writing to share my concern over garbage that was exported from Canada to the Philippines.
In 2013, 50 40-foot container vans of trash were sent by Chronic Plastics, a Toronto-based firm, to a local recycling company. The shipment was labeled as recyclable plastics but upon inspection, turned out to be a dangerous mix of wastes such as soiled diapers, household refuse, broken glass, and electronic wastes. Unclaimed and left to fester in the port area, the shipment has cost Filipino taxpayers close to 100 million pesos (2.8 million Canadian dollars) in storage and other fees. The Philippine government will also shoulder the cost of disinfecting the potentially hazardous wastes.
When Philippine President Benigno Aquino III visited Canada in April, he did not bring up the issue of exported garbage to Prime Minister Stephen Harper due to diplomatic concerns, despite clamor from environmental and health groups that the issue be included in the talking points. Canadian officials have also refused to take back the garbage on the grounds that Canada does not have a law to compel the private company to take back the garbage. However, being a signatory and one of the crafters of the Basel Convention governing the transboundary movement of wastes, Canada has an obligation to comply with the convention’s rules and regulation pertaining to illegal trade, prior consent of the receiving country, and the reimportation of the unacceptable wastes.
In May of this year, another batch of 48 containers of garbage was discovered to have been shipped to the country from Canada.
For diplomatic expediency, the issue is considered closed by the two governments which agreed to just bury a total of 98 container vans of Canadian garbage on Philippine soil. I could only conclude that both governments have blatantly disregarded the health and welfare of ordinary Filipinos who will have to live with the stench, leachate, and toxins that will also irreparably damage their environment. The Canadian government’s staunch refusal to take back the toxic wastes is an affront to another nation’s dignity and contradicts Canada’s avowed adherence to principles of human rights and environmental sustainability in its international relations.
I would like therefore to appeal to your office that this issue of unwanted Canadian garbage being illegally exported to a developing country be raised in the Canadian Parliament and investigated. No country deserves the injustice of being made a garbage dump by another country.
Thank you and I hope for your consideration and action on this matter.
Sincerely yours,
Angelina Claver
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