Containers of waste. (Source: ABS-CBN News) Ottawa (VNA) – The Canadian Government has signed a contract with shipping company Bollore Logistics Canada to bring containers of waste back to Canada from the Philippines, Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna said on May 22.
According to the tender, it will cost at least 1.14 million CAD (nearly 1 million USD) to do so.
McKenna’s office said the rubbish will be treated to meet Canadian safety and health requirements, and then disposed of by the end of this summer.
All the costs associated with the preparation, transfer, shipment, and disposal of the waste will be covered by the Canadian Government.
The announcement came just hours after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered his government to hire a private shipping company to leave 69 containers of waste in Canada’s territorial waters.
Duterte had said that if Canada doesn’t take back its trash, he will “declare war” and ship the containers back himself.
This is what was left of the 103 containers shipped by a private Canadian company to the Philippines in 2013 and 2014 and wrongly labelled as plastics for recycling. The other 34 have already been disposed of in the Philippines, despite objections from local officials and environmental groups.
Last month, Canada offered to reclaim the rubbish, but missed a May 15 deadline set by the Philippines to take back the shipment, prompting the Philippines to withdraw top diplomats from Canada last week.–VNA
VNA
