(Unsinkable Floating Objects): UFOs galore at Manila Bay

Those ubiquitous plastic sando bags, along with other synthetic packaging materials like shampoo sachets, foam cups, drinking straws and beverage bottles, comprise at least 76 percent of the trash found floating along the breadth and length of the historic, sunset-filled coastline of Manila Bay.

This was the assessment made recently by the visiting crew and volunteers of the global Greenpeace ship M.Y. Esperanza and the Manila-based Eco-Waste Coalition, a non-governmental organization (NGO) environmental alliance, after collecting four cubic meters of plastic debris from the bay aboard inflatable boats.

The waste survey was part of the environmental groups’ efforts to document and monitor the extent of plastic pollution in Manila’s famous bay, which is considered as one of the most polluted bays in Asia.

"And plastics comprise most of those unsinkable floating objects or UFOs found on Manila Bay," Eco-Waste Coalition convenor Manny Calonzo said.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Beau Baconguis echoes: "Manila Bay has become a huge floating dump for the whole of Metro Manila and the other coastal provinces from the Bataan peninsula down to Cavite."

The breakdown of the waste audit showed that those logo-inscribed supermarket carry bags and the lighter, transparent sari-sari or palengke grocery bags comprise 51 percent of the bay’s plastic debris. This is followed by sachets and junkfood packaging materials at 19 percent; five percent are styrofoams and one percent hard plastics for a total of 76 percent. Other floating objects found are rubber (10 percent) and other biodegradables (13 percent).

"The immense volume of assorted plastic garbage littering its coasts and floating in its currents is symbolic of the trashing of Manila Bay and serves as a visual reminder of the pollution that is slowly killing the seas," Baconguis added.

If it is any indication, Calonzo said, the invasion of plastic UFOs in Manila Bay mirrors the worldwide ocean scenario. Published studies, he said, showed that most of the marine debris globally is made up of 60 to 80 percent plastic materials. "In some areas, it can be as high as 90 to 95 percent of the total amount of marine debris."

Some of the country’s plastic debris might even find its way into the infamous Trash Vortex, an area in the North Pacific where plastic trash from all over the world has converged into a great gyrating mass, he added.

Each year, he said, billions of grocery bags end up as ugly ocean litter globally. Manila Bay is not an exemption to the growing list of contributing bodies of water.

Aside from making Manila Bay an unwanted eyesore, the huge volume of plastic thrash which regularly finds its way to the bay impacts greatly on the marine life, suffocating vital sea ecosystems and the plant lives, even multiplying its adverse effects on the livelihood of land-based human lives that these waters support.

Along with less visible but equally harmful pollutants, plastics have smothered the bay’s mangrove, sea grass and coral ecosystems, and as in other coastal areas where plastic thrash predominates, have led to the death of birds and marine animals via ingestion or entanglement.

Plastic bags don’t biodegrade. These grocery bags photodegrade or break down into smaller toxic slices contaminating the soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest these bits and pieces.

In the said Trash Vortex in the North Pacific Central Gyre, marine pollution yielded minuscule bits of plastics found inside planktons, the bedrock of the aquatic food web. These tiny plastic pieces outweigh plankton by six to one in some parts of the Pacific, or six pounds of plastic for every single pound of plankton.

Here, Manila Bay has already been declared as a pollution hotspot in 1999 by the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas in East Asia (PEMSEA), another independent global environmental campaigner. Manila Bay, PEAMSEA noted, suffers from pollution from industries which dump their effluents, often toxic, in the bay or in its estuaries, on top of domestic sewage.

"Degradation of the bay has long before reached alarming levels, directly affecting the health and livelihoods of around 10 million people living in the vicinity," it reported.

The invasion of those throwaway single-use grocery bags in the bay adds to the worsening degradation of Manila Bay, Calonzo concluded.

"Isn’t it time that the government, business and the plain folks move in concert to make a stand?" Calonzo dared.