Philippines garbage ship arrives in B.C. on Canada Day weekend

The vessel carrying 1,500 tonnes of garbage from the Philippines has finally arrived in Canada just ahead of Canada Day.

The garbage, which has been at the centre of a diplomatic dispute between the two countries, was originally expected to arrive on June 20th but had to be transferred to a larger vessel earlier this month.

The Danish ship, the Anna Maersk, pulled into GCT Canada Delta Port around 7:00 AM in the morning on Saturday.

“Our role as a port authority is to facilitate the safe movement of goods within the Port of Vancouver. We are not involved in the logistics of cargo movements, and in this case, it is the government working with a shipping company and a terminal,” said Danielle Jang from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.

“The plans for where the shipment goes and how it is disposed of once in Canada is also a decision that is being made by the government.”

From Delta Port the trailers containing the trash are expected to be shipped out by truck and eventually taken by rail to the Burnaby Waste-to-Energy facility, where the garbage will be incinerated.

According to Environment Canada, the federal government will be taking on the costs associated with the shipment and the garbage disposal operations.

Chris Allan, the Director of Solid Waste Operations for Metro Vancouver told The Post Millennial that the plant should begin receiving containers within two days of the ship’s arrival.

“The federal government has hired a private logistics company to handle  the shipping and transport of material to our Waste-to-Energy Facility,” said Allan.

“The logistics company will be paying the prescribed rate of $250/tonne as outlined in our Tipping Fee Bylaw.”

Currently the Anna Maersk sits docked at the Deltaport Terminal waiting to be unloaded