Whose Garbage Is It?

Canada's reputation as a reasonable and fair trading partner and an over-all good guy has been tarnished just a little bit more by the fact that we deposited 103 containers of garbage in the Philippines and for months have refused to go and get it.

All of the parties concerned agree that the containers came from Canada and that, instead of the recyclable material that the containers were supposed to contain, they contained household garbage, the stuff -including dirty diapers - that we would send to our local landfill sites. The kind of garbage that the Philippines never agreed to take. As such, there would appear to be little doubt that someone in Canada is responsible to ensure that the garbage comes back to Canada or goes elsewhere so that it can be disposed of properly. My question is why is it my problem?

I don't understand why the Government of Canada should be responsible for paying for the return of these 103 containers, or responsible for their disposal once they get here. I don't understand why my tax dollars will get used to solve this problem. It may be my garbage - but I have already paid someone to take it away. The fact that some private, for-profit company bent (or in fact broke) the rules as to what should go where - should not be my problem. Some company got paid to pick up the garbage. Part of that cost was for them to dispose of it in an approved manner. The fact that it was cheaper to ship it just over 10,000 kilometres than it was to pay local dumping fees says something about how we process our waste but disposing of it was why we paid them to pick it up. This unknown company appears to have loaded up 103 containers, got them loaded onto a boat and then washed their hand of the problem. They had to have known what they were doing was wrong They had to have known that as soon as someone in the Philippines opened those containers to start processing the recyclable materials that they would close up the containers and report it. Clearly, they did not care.

What is surprising about this whole affair is that I cannot find a single published account of who this company was. This was not something that was done by one person. There were truck drivers, stevedores, accountants, and countless others who knowingly or unknowingly were involved in the operation - but no one is talking. The company had to have had a licence to do business, to export material, they had to have paid all of the federal taxes that all companies pay. They must have had an agreement with some company in the Philippines. And yet no one is holding the owners of that company to account. Why?

In a world where we document almost everything, in a world where people share all kinds of information on social media, in a world where various political parties take great delight in looking for dirt on the ruling party - why is no one talking about who this company is and how to reclaim the cost of retrieval from the owners of this company?

The company may have disappeared or gone bankrupt. However, if the courts can confiscate the private possessions obtained through the profits of crime - these owners did commit a crime and therefore they should lose everything until their bill is paid off. If we hold companies responsible for what they do in other countries - should we not hold this company responsible as well?