International Coastal Cleanup

This is the first time I volunteer for the International Coastal Cleanup. On its 22nd year, the mission of the cleanup is to “… to remove trash and debris — on land and under the water. Volunteers of all ages from every continent will form the largest one-day volunteer event on behalf of clean oceans and waterways.”

We conducted the cleanup at the Levy Mariano Bridge in Taguig City. The bridge is located at the very heart of the city so it is not a surprise if I would see all the garbage imagined in a third world country. To my assessment, it is worse than the Pasig River.

One interesting feature of the cleanup is to identify the waste that had been trashed on the waterways. We have a sheet of paper to monitor the items picked from the waterway. There was an item to list the things that we picked up that we thought were troubling. I identified three: a lighter fluid container, a diaper and rubber tires.

One observation that got into my nerves though is that there is no participation from the community where we did the cleanup. It is so frustrating that the volunteers came not from the community but from the offices of the city. One big question is, how could the community be conscious of its environment if there is no participation coming from them? I just hope that community leaders would conduct an outreach to the grassroot so that they would be more aware of what is happening in their environment.