Duterte declares war on Canada over trash

Rodrigo Duterte sent war threats to Canada over trash shipped to the Philippines 6 years ago. According to CNN Philippines, 2,450 tons of trash was exported to the country by Chronic Plastics Inc., a Canada-based company, in 2013 and 2014. The plastic scrap materials were labeled as recyclable plastics, but were instead revealed to be non-recyclable upon local inspection. The trash was even declared illegal, as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) found that the Canadian company lacked import clearances.

The Philippines constantly has been requesting the repatriation of the trash over the last six years, but some of the garbage containers are still in the port of Manila. “I’ll give a warning to Canada maybe next week that they better pull that trash out,” said Duterte on April 23, “We’ll declare war against them, we can handle them anyway.”

The issue of global waste has led to developed countries shipping recyclable waste to overseas countries for processing. In response, China banned “foreign garbage” to reduce environmental damage last year.