Tons of water hyacinths to be made into baskets

STA. BARBARA, Pangasinan, Philippines – Tons of the invasive water hyacinth clogging the rivers and waterways here have been put to good use as raw materials for baskets.

Officials said about 250 dump trucks of water lilies that had been clogging the waterway to Ventenilla Bridge were pulled from the Sinocalan River.

“I don’t know where these water lilies came from but we immediately acted to remove them to prevent further damage,” Mayor Carlito Zaplan said.

Zaplan, a contractor by profession, said he used heavy equipment that included two backhoes, a pay loader and dump trucks to take the water lilies out of the river.

The proliferation of the water lilies was apparently aggravated by the heavy rains of Typhoon Labuyo last Monday.

The water lilies covered the river and prevented the flow of water along the bridge and a small dam in the national highway in Barangay Ventenilla.

Zaplan said he would use the tons of water lilies as raw material for the basket-making livelihood project of the local government.