Metro Pacific leads coastal cleanup

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT, Philippines – Hundreds of volunteers led by officials and employees of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) gathered yesterday morning at the Subic Bay boardwalk for the two-day 4th Shore It Up! coastal cleanup at the freeport.

The activity coincided with the 27th International Coastal Cleanup Day.

For three hours starting at 6 a.m., employees and officials of MPIC and its foundation, SubicTel and ClarkTel, accompanied by some 100 schoolchildren and 6,000 volunteers from Olongapo City and nearby Zambales towns, combed through a stretch of beach starting at the back of the Lighthouse Marina Resort inside the freeport and collected garbage.

The MPIC Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of MPIC, led the two-day activity with the theme “Rescue, Restore and Revive the Seas” which also included a tree planting activity along Tipo Road and an underwater cleanup and installation of artificial reefs at Subic Bay by volunteer divers.

The coastal cleanup was followed by a seminar on waste management attended by Shore It Up! volunteers and a dialog on waste management between the community and various foundations.

Also taking part in the two-day environmental activity were employees of the MVP Group foundation called Tulong Kapatid, academic institutions, local groups, local government units, and dive operators and clubs.

Shore It Up! was given the Award of Merit last year at the 47th Anvil Awards of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines for its environmental preservation efforts at the Hundred Islands Nature Park in Alaminos City, Pangasinan.

Last year, more than 6,000 volunteers took part in the International Coastal Cleanup in Subic Bay Freeport, removing more than 6,952 kilograms of debris from approximately two kilometers of the Subic Bay shoreline.

Buy-back scheme for plastics

Meanwhile, during the seminar on waste management yesterday, an official of a non-government environment group said the government should implement a buy-back scheme for plastics and not simply ban the use of plastic shopping bags.

Bert Guevara, of Earth Day Network Phils., said banning plastic bags is not the solution to the problem.

“We should not be complacent that we are banning plastics. The solution is a total buyback of plastics, not only plastic bags,” he said.

Guevara said majority of the garbage collected by the Shore It Up! volunteers in yesterday’s coastal cleanup was composed of plastic sachets and plastic refill packs.

According to Guevara, the government should try focusing on the recovery and recycling of these types of plastic products.

Guevara cited as example the experience of Bocaue, Bulacan, which is now almost plastic-free because of its successful plastic recovery program. 

Guevara said the local government of Bocaue did not rely on junkshops and instituted a buy-back program for plastics.

Guevara said the recovered plastic bags and sachets were recycled and converted into plastic pails, pipes and basins.

“The ban on plastic bags misses the point of encouraging people to totally recycle,” he said.