Philippines-Canada Trash Row: President Duterte ramps up pressure on Ottawa to retrieve garbage

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02:44

Tons of Canadian trash that has been sitting in Philippine ports for years may be on its way out soon after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered it dumped back into Canadian waters if necessary. But, it appears Canada's not the only foreign nation that's been exporting garbage to the Philippines. CGTN's Barnaby Lo has this report.

It has been six years since the first shipments of garbage from Canada landed in the port of Manila.

They were labeled as recyclables, but inside, tons of waste that to this day, are sitting and rotting in various Philippine ports.

Environmentalists have consistently demanded the return of the trash, but those demands seemed to have fallen on deaf ears until recently.

SALVADOR PANELO PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESPERSON "President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is so upset about the inordinate delay of Canada in shipping back its containers of garbage. The Filipino people are gravely insulted about Canada treating this country as a dumpsite."

The Philippine government ordered its ambassador and consuls pulled from Canada after Canada missed a May 15th deadline to take back the garbage. A week later.

Duterte threatened to dump them in Canadian waters, despite Canada's assurances that the matter would be taken care of by the end of June.

BARNABY LO MANILA "Both governments say they've either hired or are in the process of hiring shipping companies that would send the garbage back to Canada, but it's unclear how and when exactly. What's clear is that in more than half a decade, current indications are the strongest of the garbage finally leaving Philippine shores."

But it appears the problem isn't limited to Canada. In recent months, tons of trash from Australia and Hong Kong were also found in shipping containers in the country's ports.

ANGELICA PAGO GREENPEACE PHILIPPINES "Ever since China closed its doors to receiving trash for recycling, these richer countries are looking into Southeast Asian nations to process their waste. It's obvious that they cannot process it; we will not process it. So the only way to solve this in the long term is for them to reduce their own waste and their own consumption."

And for countries like the Philippines to truly put an end to the global waste trade, activists say it's time to ban the entry of all hazardous waste – recyclable or otherwise.

Barnaby Lo, CGTN, Manila.