PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the "immediate" shipment of tonnes of Canadian garbage back to Canada even if Manila has to pay the cost of the shipment, reports Xinhua.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said at a news conference that President Duterte is "outraged" by Canada's inaction in collecting the tonnes of waste that Canada shipped to the Philippines from 2013 to 2014.

"President Duterte is upset about the inordinate delay of Canada in shipping back its containers of garbage. We are extremely disappointed with Canada's neither here nor there pronouncement on the matter," Mr Panelo told reporters.

The Canadian garbage has been sitting in the Philippines for about six years. In 2013 and 2014, a private Canadian firm exported 103 shipping containers of garbage to the Philippines. Thirty-four of the containers were already disposed of while 69 are now quarantined in ports in Manila and Subic Freeport north of Manila.

The Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) found the containers were consisting of household trash, plastic bottles and bags, newspapers, and used adult diapers, according to local media reports.