Immediate government action vs 'flow of trash' in RP seas sought

MANILA, Philippines - Belated reports from the one-day International Coastal Cleanup in September 2008 showed that some 1.3 million marine debris items were gathered from Philippine waters.

The recently released report on marine trash has prompted environmentalists to appeal to the government to take action against the “flow of trash” in the country’s seas.

The Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit advocacy group based in Washington DC, warned of a “rising tide of ocean debris” as it collected 11.4 million items in 6,485 sites in 104 countries, including the Philippines, during the International Coastal Cleanup last year.

The report on marine trash presented the “global snapshot of marine debris” that showed floating cigarette butts, plastic bags and food wrappers, and containers as the top three most littered items among the 43 items tracked during the annual coastal cleanup event.

Of the 1,355,236 marine debris items gathered in the Philippines, a total of 679,957 were plastic bags and 253,013 were paper bags. The other top five items collected were food wrappers and containers (103,226), straws and stirrers (68,421), clothes and shoes (38,394), cigarettes and cigarette filters (34,154) and plastic beverage bottles (20,238).

Ecological Waste Coalition (EcoWaste), a local waste and pollution watchdog, said the report of the Ocean Conservancy is a clear reaffirmation of its previous survey on Manila Bay, which shows plastic debris as the most common marine litter.

EcoWaste urged the Department of Environment of Natural Resources (DENR) and National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) to take immediate action to stop the “flow of trash” in Philippine seas since garbage damages the ecosystem of the world oceans.

“Authorities must act with urgency,” said Manny Calonzo, president of EcoWaste.

The report affirms what we have been saying all along, that our territorial waters are turning into garbage dumps.

EcoWaste said it has been documenting the “unchecked dumping of discards” in Metro Manila’s canals to expose the poor enforcement of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (Republic Act 9003), which, among others, bans the unhealthy practice of littering and dumping.

EcoWaste and international environment group Greenpeace jointly conducted in 2006 a discards survey on Manila Bay, which indicated that 76 percent of the garbage found floating in the historic bay were mostly plastic materials: 51 percent were plastic bags, 19 percent junk food wrappers and sachets, five percent Styrofoam and one percent hard plastics. The same discards survey also collected other items such as rubber (10 percent) and biodegradable materials (13 percent).

Calonzo said most of the plastic trash floating in Manila Bay come from land-based sources, including from people who litter; visitors who leave their discards by the sea; households and other waste generators who fail to properly manage their waste; and open trash containers, dumpsites and landfills, especially those located near water bodies.

“Pollution from land-based sources is damaging the marine environment and endangering the ability of our oceans to adapt and sustain life amid the warming climate. We need to put an end to the trashing of the oceans before it is too late,” he said.                  – Katherine Adraneda