• About
  • Join/Donate
  • Contact
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
No Result
View All Result
The Brief
NB MEDIA CO-OP
Share a story
  • New Brunswick
  • Canada
  • World
  • Environment
  • Indigenous
  • Labour
  • Gender
  • Politics
  • Arts & Culture
  • Videos
  • COVID-19
  • New Brunswick
  • Canada
  • World
  • Environment
  • Indigenous
  • Labour
  • Gender
  • Politics
  • Arts & Culture
  • Videos
  • COVID-19
No Result
View All Result
NB MEDIA CO-OP
No Result
View All Result
Home Canada

“You have taken our gold and now you send us your garbage”: Canada illegally dumping waste in the Philippines

by Tracy Glynn
August 1, 2015
3 min read
Sister_Stella
Sister Stella Matutina of Mindanao, the Philippines, has a message for Canadians about their mining and waste dumping at the International Peoples’ Mining Conference in Manila on July 31, 2015. Photo by Tracy Glynn.

Manila – Filipino activists gathered at the International Peoples’ Mining Conference are not just talking about mining abuses by Canadian mining companies, they also want Canadians to know that Canada is illegally dumping its waste in their country.

About 50 container vans of mixed waste from Canada was discovered in Manila’s port in June 2013. More container vans of waste have since been discovered in the ports of Manila and scenic Subic as well as near a new landfill site in Central Luzon, just north of the capital. The landfill has displaced people.

“It’s an environmental justice issue,” says Francisco Dangla III, Secretary-General of BAYAN in Central Luzon. “Canadian companies are extracting raw resources from our country and Canada is dumping its waste.”

Sister Stella Matutina is from the natural resource-rich island of Mindanao that has attracted several multinational mining companies like Canadian-based TVI, which is connected to the murders of activists, kidnappings, illegal detentions, torture, threats, displacement and loss of livelihoods.

“Mindanao is not for you foreigners!” declared Sister Matutina to conference participants. “You have taken our gold and now you give us your garbage!”

“There’s money in garbage. Landfills are needed but having a private corporation managing the waste means that waste is connected to profit. More garbage, more profit,” says Dangla.

Twenty-seven of the fifty container vans of the waste that was sitting in the Manila port was suddenly dumped in the Philippines between June 25 and July 8. The activists call the dumping illegal because it failed to have a court order.

Local environmental and health groups as well as international groups that work on enforcing the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal denounced the dumping. Both Canada and the Philippines are signatories to the Basel Convention that aims to prevent the dumping of hazardous materials from developed nations to less developed ones.

Charges have been filed against the local importer in the Philippines but no charges have been laid against the Canadian exporter.

BAN Toxics, Basel Action Network (BAN) and Greenpeace Philippines are condemning the Canadian government for “callous disregard of international law.”

“We had warned President Aquino about the consequences of letting Canada push us around by agreeing to bury their first illegal shipment on Philippine soil. How long will the Philippines be willing to submit to what is nothing less than waste colonialism?” said Richard Gutierrez, Executive Director of BT in a statement on May 22.

Basel Convention, Annex II stipulates that household waste cannot be exported to any country without prior notification and consent. Activists say that Canada did not seek nor receive such consent. They say that the Convention instructs Canada to take back the waste and criminally prosecute the exporter.

The waste is being exported to the Philippines by Canadian company, Chronics Inc. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department is claiming that it cannot legally force the shipper of the waste to return its waste to Canada. BAN disagrees and feels that this is a clear case of non-compliance with the Basel Convention. BAN plans to file a complaint with the Basel Secretariat.

The Philippines’ Department of Environment and Natural Resources have issued waste dumping permits but the people and local government of Central Luzon oppose its dumping. Besides the Basel Convention, activists say the importing of waste violates several local laws such as those concerning recyclable materials that contain hazardous substances.

According to a customs official who wishes to remain unnamed, one batch of waste that arrived from Canada was wrongly declared as plastic recyclables when it was mixed household waste.

The dumping of the waste has been condemned in street protests and recently in May before the 12th Conference of the Parties of the Basel Convention in Geneva.

More than 38,000 people have signed a petition asking the Canadian government to take back the garbage. The petition states: “Canada, pick up your garbage! Philippines is not your trash can!”

Tracy Glynn was a participant of the International Peoples’ Mining Conference in Manila in 2015. 

Tags: CanadaminingsliderThe PhilippinesTracy Glynnwaste
ShareTweetSend

Related Posts

Theatre St. Thomas tackles timely play about Chilean refugees
Arts & Culture

Theatre St. Thomas tackles timely play about Chilean refugees

December 1, 2020

A play by a Chilean author who was exiled to Canada in the seventies is still relevant today to confront...

The hypocrisy of the Liberal’s nuclear policy
*Opinion*

The hypocrisy of the Liberal’s nuclear policy

November 26, 2020

A Vancouver MP’s last-minute withdrawal from a recent webinar on Canada’s nuclear arms policy highlights Liberal hypocrisy. The government says...

Fredericton residents hope to keep the Out of the Cold Shelter open
Economy

Fredericton residents hope to keep the Out of the Cold Shelter open

November 23, 2020

Fredericton residents feel confident that they have successfully organized to keep the Out of the Cold Shelter, also known as...

David Bush and Valerie Lannon on the Green New Deal and the socialist case against the carbon tax [video]
Canada

David Bush and Valerie Lannon on the Green New Deal and the socialist case against the carbon tax [video]

November 22, 2020

On November 20, David Bush made a socialist case against the carbon tax and was followed by Valerie Lannon's thoughts...

Load More

Recommended

Embracing the “us” in “nothing about us, without us”: Implementing peer support with housing first services

2 years ago
Alward government dodging shale gas moratorium

Alward government dodging shale gas moratorium

8 years ago

Energy for Everyone: A summit beyond pipelines and shale gas

7 years ago
airportstrikerally-june2012-sq

NB Labour supports striking Fredericton airport workers

9 years ago
NB Media Co-op

© 2019 NB Media Co-op. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Join/Donate
  • Contact
  • Share a Story
  • Calendar
  • Archives

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • Join/Donate
  • Contact
  • Share a Story
  • COVID-19
  • Videos
  • New Brunswick
  • Canada
  • World
  • Arts & Culture
  • Environment
  • Indigenous
  • Labour
  • Politics
  • Rural

© 2019 NB Media Co-op. All rights reserved.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In