By Denise Joy D. Nicolas @nicolasden_TRL
October 7, 2022
Volunteers pick up trash along the shore of Manila Baywalk as participation on this year's International Coastal Cleanup Day. | via Eloisa Lopez, Reuters
To celebrate the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) Day 2022, thousands of volunteers took part in cleanup activities at the Manila Baywalk Dolomite Beach last September 17.
Spearheaded by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the said event took place along the waters of Manila Bay, famous for its sunsets but heavily polluted with trash and was recently beautified. The cleanup drive had yielded at least 4,500 sacks of garbage.
The Philippines may be rich in marine resources as it has nearly 36,300 km (22,555 miles) of coastline but it also accounts for releasing roughly a third of the total plastic waste into the ocean, making it the world’s top polluter, as reported by University of Oxford's Our World in Data, a scientific online publication, on April 2022.
Saving the Ocean
ICC Day is celebrated annually on every third Sunday of September. In 2006, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that at least 46,000 pieces of plastic debris were floating in every mile of ocean.
Every year to observe coastal cleanup day, volunteers would record and pick up tons of trash along the coastlines, rivers, and also lakes. This day was intended for raising awareness about the growing garbage problem among various beaches globally.
Aside from raising awareness, this is practiced to provide information that will help as a guide and influence governments or organizations to create solutions to the problem of marine debris.
Ocean Conservancy, an environment advocacy group, established this day and the first ICC Day was celebrated in the USA, specifically, on the west coast of Washington in the year 1986. Since then, Ocean Conservancy estimates that 350 million pounds of waste has been removed from beaches and waterways around the world.
Aside from organizing cleanup activities in coastal areas, ICC also offers an app called, “Clean Swell.” Through this app one can upload each record of trash collected and it will then be uploaded directly to the global ocean trash database of Ocean Conservancy. This data, in return, provides an overview that would help researchers and policy-makers create insights to inform solutions for marine pollution. This is available on both Google Play and App Store for free.
This year is the 36th annual ICC Campaign, with the #SeatheChange campaign slogan, ICC Director Allison Schutes hopes to inspire people to move and get their hands dirty to see the change.
ICC Day comes to the Philippines
Presidential Proclamation No. 470, dated September 15, 2003, institutionalized the ICC Day here in our country, Philippines.
In a 2021 ICC report by Ocean’s Conservancy, the Philippines had a record of more than 6,000 volunteers and 157, 286 pounds of yielded weight in last year’s ICC Day.
As participation for this year’s ICC Day, according to the guidelines released by the International Coastal Cleanup Philippines (ICC Philippines), due to the current pandemic we are in, coastal cleanups activities may be done through small groups any day throughout the first day of September until the end of December 2022. Small-scale clean up must be conducted so that social distancing can be practiced.
The theme for this cleanup event at Manila Baywalk is “Fighting for Trash Free Seas-Pilipinas: Ending the Flow of Trash at the Source.” This event is one of the eight cleanup activities led by DENR in Metro Manila.
Director Rodelina de Villa, the DENR-Metropolitan Environmental Office (MEO) West OIC Director stated that the collected wastes mostly consists of plastic wastes, dried water hyacinth, and marine debris.
Plastic wastes as one of the most collected trash isn’t a surprise today. According to Encounter Edu, plastic thrown away every year is enough to circle around the world four times. 10% of the total waste we generate are plastics while people only manage to recover 5% of the plastics we produce.
Stepping forward, picking up trash one at a time
"Volunteers from government, private organizations, and private individuals came to the Baywalk’s coastline with their own garbage bags as well,” said de Villa from a press release from DENR.
De Villa stated that 3,000 of the garbage sacks were provided by DENR Central Office and the other 1,500 bags came from the DENR-National Capital Region. Then additional bags were from the participating national and local government agencies along with private organizations.
In a Facebook post of DENR inviting people to participate in the ICC Day, “bringing their own cleaning paraphernalia” was stated for the volunteers.
Facebook post of DENR calling for volunteers for the International Coastal Cleanup Day
But the post also garnered criticism from the netizens.
Some comments include how millions were spent for the beautification of Manila Bay yet Filipinos would be the ones to clean it. Another criticism was as mentioned by Jon Bonifacio, national coordinator of Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, that cleanup activities like this can be an avenue for public officials for photo opportunities despite the importance of cleaning up trash on coastal shores.
Global Coordinator of Break Free from Plastics, Von Hernandez, stated that we should not spend millions if the roots of the problem at hand is not being addressed. “[I]t’s better investment for the government to [just] compel producers and companies to reduce and stop the production of single-use plastics and invest in proven reusable and … refill[ing] systems,” he said to Inquirer.
Still, even with these criticisms, some people accepted the invitation and took part in the cleanup activity.
Various Facebook posts from the volunteers' showed their participation for International Coastal Cleanup Day
Some volunteers also expressed the importance of having cleanup drives like this. In an article from Reuters, volunteers shared their sentiments.
A 36-year-old volunteer, Janet Panganiban shared to Reuters, "We need to do these (cleanup drives) for our environment and to discourage people from throwing trash on the seaside."
As over 4,000 volunteers were said to be part of this clean up activity many posts of their participation on Facebook were also uploaded.
Different communities among volunteers participated in the cleanup activity. Ranging from the youth of the Scouts of Las Piñas City Community Scouting to the officers from Navotas City Jail, all showed their involvement to raise awareness and protect biological life in coastal areas.
Manila Water Services Inc. Manila Water Company Inc. and the Dragon Boat Federation also joined the volunteers for this cleanup drive.
Reaffirming their vow of protecting water bodies, Manila Water contributed to this event through collecting 1,000 kilos of trash from the coastline of Manila Bay wherein the Cultural Center of the Philippines was nearby and bringing water tankers and water stations dedicated for the volunteers. In partnership with UNICEF, the company also distributed alcohol for those attendees of the event.
"However big and daunting the task is, we can make a difference by bringing communities
and people together to clean up beaches. Proof of this are organizations and individuals coming
together at the Baywalk Dolomite Beach," de Villa said commending the coming together of private individuals and different organizations to take part in this cleanup activity.
Outside waters of Manila Bay, the movement continues
The celebration of ICC Day was not only observed through the cleanup drive in Manila Bay as the cleanup activities were also conducted around the country in different barangay or municipalities.
Cleanup activities were not limited to places along coastal areas or around large bodies of water as it was practiced in any part of neighborhoods around the country.
Barangay Hulong Dubat from Malabon City did their cleanup along the waterways of Hulong Duhat-Damalit Flood Gate. Barangay staff and officers with Hulong Duhat Fire and Rescue Volunteers participated in the cleanup drive.
Philippine Statistics Authority NCR Provincial Statistics Office II, on the other hand, observed coastal cleanup along the River of San Francisco, Brgy. Talayan and Mariblo Quezon City.
Also, in an Advisory No. 042, s.2022 released by the Department of Education (DepEd), the targeted participants were not only the officers and staff from schools but also from central, regional and division offices. Public and private schools may coordinate with their local government units in doing the clean up in their respective neighborhoods.
Castor Z. Concepcion Memorial National High School with their academic organizations and partners showed their participation at the Almeida Watch Tower, Balaoan in La Union.
Another school, Marcial B. Villanueva National High School (MBVNHS) faculty and students were one in celebrating ICC Day by having a coastal cleanup at the coast of Barangay Cawayan in Quezon Province.
According to the data provided by DENR-MEO-West, cleanup activities done at the Manila Bay from July 12 to September 14 had yielded 147,939 sacks of solid wastes, 3,109 sacks of water hyacinth and 2,224 sacks of marine debris.
Keywords
Manila Bay
cleanup activities
Manila Baywalk Dolomite Beach
DENR
environment
plastics
Facebook
celebrate the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) Day 2022
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