Navotas Shuts the Door on Canada Garbage


The Navotas City Council on Tuesday adopted a resolution that will protect itself from becoming a dumping ground for trash coming from other countries.

Through a resolution filed by District 2 Councilor Ma. Lourdes del Rosario-Tumangan, the City Council conveyed its “strong opposition” to the disposal of imported garbage in the Navotas Sanitary Landfill or in any part of the city.

The councilors cited City Ordinance No. 2012-06 (the Environment Code of the City of Navotas) and Municipal Ordinance No. 2005-06 (the Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Ordinance of the Municipality of Navotas) in opposing foreign waste disposal in the city.

“We congratulate Navotas City for its action to defend its right to a healthy environment in line with existing ordinances,” said Navotas resident Romy Hidalgo, NGO Representative to the National Solid Waste Management Commission.

Navotas City is the latest local government unit to forbid the disposal of the botched Canadian mixed trash imports disguised as plastic scraps for recycling after being rejected by other local government units (LGUs).

Tarlac and Bulacan provincial authorities had earlier blocked the disposal of the illegal trash imports from Canada in local landfills.  Quezon City last Tuesday held a public hearing to discuss a resolution that will foil any attempt to dump the smuggled trash in Payatas landfill.

“The message is clear as day that no LGU will accept the Canadian garbage.  It has nowhere to go but Canada,” he pointed out

For her part, Aileen Lucero, Coordinator of the EcoWaste Coalition, insisted that the national government should not burden LGUs with garbage not of its making.

“Responsible agencies should expedite the re-export of the illegal trash imports back to Canada to put this controversy to rest,” she said.

Between June to September 2013, 55 container vans of mixed garbage from Canada, consigned to Chronic Plastics, entered the port of Manila and subsequently intercepted by customs authorities.  After sitting in the port for months, 26 of these garbage-filled containers were illegally dumped in a private landfill in Capas, Tarlac  between June 26 to July 8, 2015 until exposed and stopped by the provincial board.

In May this year, customs authorities revealed the discovery of 48 more container vans of mixed garbage from Canada, consigned to Live Green Enterprises, bringing the total number of illegal Canadian trash shipments to 103 shipping containers.
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