The Philippines vows to return 25 tonnes of trash dumped by Hong Kong

The crushed electronic materials arrived at the Mindanao Container Terminal on January 2, but were only discovered on May 22

The latest scandal comes as Manila is locked in a separate row with Canada over 2,500 tonnes of household waste shipped between 2014 and 2015

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A 2015 file photo showing environmental activists in the Philippines protesting to demand Canada take back containers of waste that had been sent to the Southeast Asian nation. Photo: AP

Published: 9:05pm, 27 May 2019Updated: 6:06pm, 31 May 2019

The Philippines has vowed to immediately send back to Hong Kong 25 tonnes of trash dumped in the Southeast Asian nation, officials said Monday, in an effort to change its status as the world’s third largest ocean polluter.

John Simon, deputy customs collector for the Northern Mindanao region, told reporters that the trash from Hong Kong – about 25,610kg of crushed electronic materials – was shipped by Hin Yuen Tech Env Limited and was consigned to Crowd Win Industrial Limited of Pasay City.

The trash, he said, arrived at the Mindanao Container Terminal in the southern Philippines’ Misamis Oriental province on January 2, but was only discovered on May 22.

“We’re sending the s*** back,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr said in a May 25 tweet, adding that the country had stopped accepting foreign trash under the Duterte administration.

The latest scandal comes as Manila is locked in a separate bilateral row with Canada over rubbish.

President Rodrigo Duterte two weeks ago ordered the recall of the Philippines’ ambassador and consuls from Ottawa after failing to get Canada to take back 100 containers filled with about 2,500 tonnes of household waste – including plastic bottles, bags and used adult diapers – that were shipped between 2014 to 2015.

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