The group Ban Toxic and Seattle-based Basel Action Network (BAN) have formally asked the secretariat of the Basel Convention to look into the Canadian waste dumping incident in the Philippines.
Ban Toxic Executive Director Richard Gutierrez also took a jab at President Aquino, lamenting that the highest official of the land did not even mention the Canadian waste in his state-of-the-nation address on Monday.
In their letter submitted to the Basel Convention secretariat, BAN and Ban Toxic asserted that as household wastes are a Basel Convention Annex II waste, Canada is bound to strictly control its export.
Some 100 containers of household wastes were shipped into the country last year, some of which were already disposed in a landfill despite widespread protest and clamor that Canada takes back its garbage.
The groups, in their letter, criticized Canada for maintaining that its domestic laws do not control household waste.
They said this indicates Canada’s failure to properly transpose their international treaty obligations into domestic law.
“Canada has admitted to us that it has failed to properly implement the Basel Convention. This means that they are not in compliance, which resulted in significant economic and environmental harm to the Philippines,” said Jim Puckett, executive director of the Basel Action Network.
“We have asked them on several occasions to take responsibility as required of them under the law but they have simply refused,” he added.
As a party to the Basel Convention, illegal traffic such as this must be prosecuted by Canada as a criminal act and the illegally exported waste should be returned to its territory unless it is impractical to do so, the groups asserted.
“Cases like this require the Secretariat to act. If this gross non-compliance is simply swept under the carpet, the Basel Convention and indeed all international laws become a sad joke. We have faith that the Secretariat will do the right thing on this case,” Gutierrez, a lawyer, said.
Three weeks ago, the contents of 24 of the 103 container vans have been dumped in a landfill in Capaz, Tarlac. The Sangguniang Panlalawigan, meanwhile, passed a resolution in an attempt to stop the garbage disposal.
The wastes, according to Jim Makris, the owner of the Ontario-based firm that exported the material, contain only recyclable plastics obtained from a Vancouver-based recycling company. But an examination by authorities revealed that the containers actually contain household wastes that may potentially cause harm to people and environment.
They are mixed household wastes, with a small percentage of soiled diapers and electronic wastes, listed in Annex II of the Basel Convention.
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