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Sunday, October 12, 2003
One clean-up day keeps the garbage away
By Jeneen R. Garcia
A day at the beach doesn’t always mean fun and frolic. Last Sept. 20, more than 250 high-schoolers, elementary schoolchildren, and other student volunteers took a dip in the waters off Cordova to celebrate International Coastal Clean-Up (ICC) Day.
Making up the majority of the group were the town’s youth from Cordova Academy and Barangay Day-as National High School. Biology and Science Education majors from the University of San Jose-Recolletos (USJ-R) also teamed up with the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (Elac) and the officials of Barangay Buagsong to clean up Mactan Island’s famous Cordova wetlands.
Everyone was caught in the heat of the moment. Between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., the small army of beach-lovers gathered what amounted to two small truckloads of mostly plastic bags, wrappers, rope and styropor. Kids as young as six years old followed the lead and helped clean up after lunch.
But as early as 6 a.m. that day, municipal employes and students of Pilipog Elementary School were already out to tidy the mess in the neighboring barangay. They began in the coastal community of Tugbungan in Barangay Pilipog, then took on the wet market afterwards.
Considering the high seaside population of Pilipog, it was no surprise that the garbage collected there added three more truckloads to the morning’s work. Not too bad for such young environmental soldiers. But young as they were, most of the kids weren’t really new to the rite of environmental protection. Cordova has been regularly celebrating ICC Day for at least three years now.
The very first ICC Day took place in 1985 in Texas. Eighteen years of coastal clean-ups since have shown that 89% of beach trash all over the world are made up of cigarettes, plastic bags, food wrappers, bottles…stuff that wouldn’t be around if beach-goers only cleaned up after themselves.
Though sardine cans and broken softdrink bottles are obviously human hazards, plastics and other debris pose a greater danger to wildlife, which could end up swallowing cellophane or getting entangled in bags, balloons and six-pack holders.
Cordova, with its rich diversity of fisheries and birdlife, is not taking any chances. Aside from frequent clean-ups, the Municipal Council has also established waste segregation centers in each barangay to recycle some of the trash that might otherwise end up at sea.
The garbage, of course, will never totally disappear. Every day, residents (and tourists) of Mactan generate tons of waste to replace what goes into the garbage trucks. But the miracle of this year’s International Coastal Clean-Up Day in Cordova—and perhaps the miracle of all annual clean-ups all over the world—is that for one day, youth of different ages and backgrounds came together to show that beaches don’t have to be dirty.
People putting the right trash in the right places can already eliminate 89% of the garbage. Then maybe there wouldn’t have to be an ICC Day. Because for a kid, a day at the beach should only mean fun and frolic.
(October 12, 2003 issue)
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