Last September 16 was International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) Day. People from all over the world went to beaches and waterways to remove trash. The ICC was founded more than 35 years ago by Linda Maraniss and Kathy O’Hara, both of whom worked at the Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., United States. Since its beginning, more than 18 million volunteers have joined collecting more than 173 million kilos of trash.
The Philippines started participating in the ICC around 1994. In 2003, the event was institutionalized through Proclamation No. 470, series of 2003, signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo designating the third Saturday of September Philippine ICC Day. For this year’s clean-up, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reported that there were 74,075 volunteers from 1,913 government, academe, and private sector organizations who participated. That’s more than double the 35,000 volunteers last year.
In the 2023 ICC report, 486,045 volunteers participated in the clean-up, slightly higher than the 469,482 volunteers in 2022. There were 14,339,832 pieces of trash collected, weighing 3,612,215 kilograms. Just like in 2022, the United States has the greatest number of participants numbering 134,674 closely followed by the Philippines with 129,154 volunteers.
Cigarette butts remained on top of the list as the biggest item recovered, followed by plastic beverage bottles, plastic bottle caps, food wrappers (candy, chips, etc.) and plastic grocery bags. Also on the top ten list are other types of plastic bags, plastic food containers, plastic cups and plates, plastic straws and stirrers and paper cups and plates. These are the same top ten items recovered in 2022.
In the Philippines 2,629,863 pieces of trash were collected weighing 444,869 kilograms. Plastic grocery bags topped the list comprising 13% of the total trash, followed by food wrappers (candy, chips, etc.) at 10%, plastic beverage bottles at 9.2%, other plastic bags at 8%, and plastic cups and plates at 5.5%. It is surprising that plastic beverage bottles, highly recyclable materials which can be sold in junkshops, came in second. This list confirms that plastic waste comprises the bulk of trash being indiscriminately disposed in bodies of water.
To address the plastic waste problem in the Philippines, Republic Act No. 11898, or the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022 was passed in 2022. The law requires companies covered by the regulation to reduce and/or recover for reuse, recycling, treatment, or proper ecological disposal the plastic packaging waste that they released to the domestic market. In 2023, the DENR reported that the 20% diversion rate target for the first year of implementation was met.
In the international scene, an international legally binding instrument to curb plastic pollution is targeted to be passed before the year ends. Since 2022, four sessions have been conducted by the international negotiating committee to come up with a draft agreement. The fifth session is scheduled to take place from November 25 to December 01, 2024 in South Korea.