Five years on, Canada’s dumped garbage is still causing a big stink in the Philippines
- Tonnes of rotting refuse have sat festering on the docks in the Philippines since arriving illicitly from Vancouver in 2013
- Manila has repeatedly asked Canada to repatriate the rubbish, but Ottawa will only concede that it is ‘theoretically possible’
“Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, please repatriate your garbage: it stinks.”
The pressure mounted this week when an array of Canadian and international environmental groups threw their support behind the EcoWaste Coalition of the Philippines, a local network leading the fight against foreign waste.
The campaign is the latest attempt to break years of deadlock over 77 remaining shipping containers full of reeking garbage that started arriving illicitly from Vancouver, British Columbia in 2013 – and have been decaying in shipyard limbo ever since.
“The dumping of Canadian waste in the Philippines is immoral and illegal,” wrote Aileen Lucero, the national coordinator of EcoWaste, in an open letter to Trudeau on January 30.
“The scandal has dragged on for five years without resolution, despite promises from the Canadian government to address the problem, including public statements made by yourself as prime minister,” she said.
