The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said cleanup activities during this year’s International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) were held at 369 coastal, river, waterway and underwater sites across all 17 regions on Sept. 19.
The nationwide effort brought together national government agencies, local government units, schools, businesses, civic groups, communities and other organizations.
Shared responsibility
Environment Secretary Juan Miguel “Mitch” Cuna said effective solid waste management ultimately depended on people taking responsibility for the waste they generate.
“Our understanding of solid waste management has evolved over the years. But regardless of how many ‘Rs’ we add to the framework of reuse, reduce, and recycle, there is one ‘R’ that makes all the others possible: this is our responsibility,” Cuna said.
“Responsibility transforms policies into practice. It turns technology into solutions. And it turns individual actions into national progress,” he added.
Metro Manila accounted for more than 36,000 participants, with cleanup activities conducted at 11 locations, including Baseco Beach, Manila Bay Dolomite Beach, Manila Ocean Park, the Pasig and Marikina rivers, Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park and Tanza Marine Tree Park.
Volunteers recovered food wrappers, paper and plastic cups and plates, polystyrene foam food containers, straws and stirrers, among other discarded materials.
The collected waste was weighed, sorted and recorded by type to generate data that could help authorities identify marine litter patterns and target waste-management interventions.
Beyond cleanup
The ICC also drew participation from companies covered by the Extended Producer Responsibility Act of 2022, which requires large enterprises to recover an increasing percentage of the plastic packaging they introduce into the market.
Cuna said stronger waste-management systems must be accompanied by changes in everyday behavior, including refusing unnecessary items, properly segregating waste, reusing materials and disposing of remaining waste responsibly.
The cleanup comes as the government seeks to update the 25-year-old Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.
In his 2026 State of the Nation Address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called for the law to be updated to reflect modern waste-management practices and technologies, including waste-to-energy and waste-treatment technologies.
Preventing pollution
Cuna said revising the law presented an opportunity to improve the entire system, from waste segregation and collection to recycling, resource recovery, treatment and environmentally sound disposal.
For the DENR, he said, the goal should go beyond collecting discarded materials from waterways and coastlines.
“So today, as we clean our shores, let us also renew our commitment to prevent waste before it becomes pollution, recover resources instead of discarding them, and make responsible waste management a way of life,” Cuna said.
Last year’s nationwide cleanup mobilized more than 104,000 volunteers and collected over 466,000 kilograms of solid waste.
While this year’s turnout and waste collection were close to those levels, the DENR said the longer-term measure of progress should be how much waste is prevented from reaching the country’s waterways in the first place. — Ed: Corrie S. Narisma
