Totally dismayed—and understandably so—were the environmentalists who expected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take back some 100 shipping containers misdeclared by an Ontario-based firm as plastic scraps but later found out to be household wastes.
A total of 103 containers of trash consignments from Canada entered the country in 10 batches and intercepted by Customs authorities from June 2013 to January 2014.
Trudeau said Canada is looking at a “Canadian solution” and possibly amending legislation to address the unresolved problem of a garbage shipment from a Canadian company to Manila.
The Canadian prime minister made no clear commitment to take back their trash: “I have obviously been made aware of this situation and told that there is a Canadian solution in the process of being developed. And at the same time, this has exposed a problem that needs fixing within our own legislation,” Trudeau said.
Pressed on what such solution might be, Trudeau said part of resolving the matter would be to plug loopholes that allowed the incident to happen in the first place: “I think going forward, we need to ensure that if a situation like this were to arise once again, the Canadian government will have more power to actually demand action from the companies responsible."
Environmentalist groups have since been urging the government to compel Canada to take back the garbage, citing the Basel Convention that bars developed countries from dumping wastes on less developed countries.
The Canadian Embassy has maintained that the case was a private commercial matter between Chronic Inc. and its Philippine partner, Chronic Plastics.
From the looks of it, given Trudeau's pronouncement, the stink from Canadian garbage is here to stay.
The lesson here? Our environmentalists should probably direct their lobbying and advocacy efforts at the Canadian legislature—and the Canadian people themselves to exert pressure on their own legislators.
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