The Great Canada Philippines Diplomatic Garbage Dispute of 2019 Seems Almost Over

Environmental activists rally outside the Philippine Senate in Manila to demand that scores of containers filled with household rubbish be shipped back to Canada and to push for the ratification of the Basel Ban Amendment which prohibits the export of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries ,on Sept. 9, 2015. Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images

OTTAWA—Canada’s garbage is coming home from the Philippines.

Canada has made a formal offer to have more than six dozen containers of Canadian household trash returned to the Port of Vancouver nearly six years after it was sent to Manila labelled incorrectly as plastics for recycling.

The Canadian offer came around the same time as the Philippines has ordered its Bureau of Customs to get the containers back on a ship bound for Canada no later than May 15.

Last month President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to declare war on Canada if it didn’t take back its trash and set this week as a deadline for an end to the impasse.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in Quezon City, Philippines on Oct. 26, 2017. Reuters/Dondi Tawatao

Duterte’s colourful comments were matched by his foreign secretary Teodoro Locsin, who tweeted this week that he is going after the Filipino importers who brought the trash into the country but dismissed suggestions they should be sent to Canada with the garbage because that would be “too much pollution.”

Global Affairs Canada spokesman Adam Austen says Canada hasn’t received a formal reply to the offer to bring the garbage back but Locsin tweeted that the garbage would be on boats by May 15 “no ifs or buts.”