Canada should take out the trash
Imagine how angry you’d be if one of your neighbours neglected to empty a trash can, opting instead to leave the accumulated garbage rotting in the summer sun?
Now consider the magnitude of your upward-spiralling ire if the aforementioned fermenting-refuse receptacle remained there, unemptied and decomposing, week after week for four full years?
And finally, ponder the possible full extent of your fury if that neighbour somehow deposited that stinking Dumpster in your yard rather than his own. Oh, and that instead of a single malodorous dustbin, it was actually 100 shipping containers filled with a pungent mix of recyclables, household garbage and soiled adult diapers.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (last) week found himself stuck with the unenviable task of explaining how Canada came to be that neighbour, during a visit to the Philippines that was supposed to be focused on his attendance at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Canada summit but was temporarily sidelined by the festeringcontainer controversy.
It was, as one might imagine, a messy and embarrassing distraction from the business at hand. And it wasn’t the first time Mr. Trudeau has been confronted with the Canadian-garbage issue. During the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Manila in 2015, the PM was also asked about the rogue receptacles and assured then-president Benigno Aquino III that “a Canadian solution was being developed.”
Two years later, the stench has only intensified as Mr. Trudeau’s promised solution remains elusive.
All of which, of course, raises the question of how 103 containers of Canadian trash — something like 2,500 tonnes’ worth — ended up in the Philippines in the first place. Apparently, it was shipped there, in 2013 and 2014, by a Canadian company purporting to be sending recyclable plastics. When the shipments were opened for inspection, however, the recyclables were revealed to be mixed up with, and messed up by, household trash, old CDs, tangled wires, used plastic cups and the now-infamous, soiled incontinence garments.
The material obviously could not be recycled, but stamping it “return to sender” has proved, at least so far, to be equally impossible. Customs officials in Manila declared the material potentially hazardous and impounded the shipments.
Filipinos are justifiably outraged. The made-in-Canada mess has been the subject of news reports, with numerous protests being staged by environmental and public-health activists. In 2014, the Philippine government sought to have the containers returned to Canada under provisions of the Basel Convention, which prohibits developed countries from shipping waste to developing nations.
“It is OK for us that the prime minister dropped by a 100 per cent Filipino restaurant and take out fries or a burger for himself,” EcoWaste Coalition co-ordinator Aileen Lucero said after Mr. Trudeau made a photo-op stop at a Jollibee outlet in Manila. “But there is (something) much more important to take out, and that is the Canada waste.”
For his part, the PM again assured his Filipino hosts that a Canadian solution to the Canadian garbage problem is in the offing. Whether that amounts to finding an environmentally responsible way to dispose of the trash in the Philippines or a direct deportation of the dreck back to Canada remains to be seen.
Whatever the case, it’s up to Canada to end this embarrassment by dealing with the containers. On the global stage, we should not and cannot be that neighbour.
An editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press (distributed by The Canadian Press)