Despite strong environmental activism among Filipinos, the Philippines still suffers from a trash problem.
Data shows that local government units are struggling to implement the “Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000” or RA 9003 which was signed into law in 2001.
Seventeen years after the enactment of the law, 50 complaints were filed with the Office of the Ombudsman for non-compliance with the law.
From 2012 to 2017, the Philippines was consistently among the top participating countries in Ocean Conservatory’s International Coastal Cleanup. This is with the exception of 2016, when events in the Philippines were “canceled due to geopolitical circumstances.”
The Philippines doesn’t have a shortage of waste management or ocean advocacy groups either – all it takes is a quick Google search to find them.
Friends who have been swept up by the zero waste trend will tell you it’s just a matter of swapping plastic straws for your reusable metal one. It’s not a bad suggestion, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our trash problem.
The more waste in the Philippines causes the increase in global warming, high temperature and less oxygen because of the air pollution.The Philippines’ trash increased by 40 percent in 2010 and the ocean found 1,355,236 items of trash and people, nearly 400,000 volunteers, gather from around the world just to help in the Philippines.
For me, this is something really scary because I don’t know what would happen to the Philippines in the future. With simple things like cleaning up garbage can’t be done, what more for bigger things. Would you expect that the Filipinos would progress? Of course not. That’s why it’s a scary thing because you’ll never know what is going to happen in the next years to come. For the youth, there is still a chance to improve our garbage problem by simply starting with our own neighborhood first. I’m sure it would go a long way from there.
Planet Mania 