River cleanup yields 557 tons of rubbish

CEBU, Philippines — At least 557 tons of garbage were hauled from Cebu City waterways by volunteers.

This was the result of the city’s food-for-work program, which employs street dwellers and volunteers to contribute to public works programs, such as clean-up drive, in exchange for cans of sardines and kilos of rice.

The Cebu City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) and the Department of Public Services (DPS) are implementing the program.

 From July 1 to July 28, the program gathered 557 tons of garbage.

Lawyer John Jigo Dacua, CENRO chief, said 261 residents from Barangays Day-as, Inayawan, Cogon Pardo, and Mambaling joined the cleanup activity from July 1 to July 25.

The volunteers collected garbage from rivers and creeks with installed biofences, which are made of recycled plastic water bottles wired together and designed to swing loosely under water to form a barrier to prevent trash from floating into the sea.

Each of the biofence is about ten meters long and half-a-meter wide and cost the city around P800 to make.

Engineer Joel Biton, DPS acting head, said his office tapped 14 street dwellers for the cleanup of Tejero River over the weekend.

He said the dwellers were able to collect 5.3 tons of garbage and they were given five boxes of sardines. Each box has 100 cans of sardines.

But some netizens called the attention of the city government after photos of volunteers submerged in garbage-filled river have been circulating online.

The volunteers, the netizens said, should be given safety gears to avoid acquiring common waterborne diseases, including leptospirosis.

Biton said his office has already asked the City Health Department to provide volunteers medicines and immunization.

Aside from Tejero River, the city is set to clean the waterways in the Barangays of Tinago, Ermita and Pasil.

Moreover, Biton said the program will continue since the city still has 20,000 boxes of canned sardines that have yet to be distributed. These cans of sardines were left overs of the Basura mo, Sardinas ko program of the previous administration. — KBQ (FREEMAN)