Around 40 employees and 60 members of the Guardians of the Environment from MORE Power joined in the annual International Coastal Clean-up Day.
Every volunteer picked up the trash to form as part of a massive data collection as well as cleaning Villa Beach, which experiences a surge of coastal trash each year. Either brought by the monsoon or just pure household trash from residents.
The volunteers are composed of students from the University of the Philippines in the Visayas and John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University.
“Nagapaninlo kita subong para ma maintain naton ang cleanliness sang dagat, para makita naton ang basura para indi maka apekto sa mga isda naton nga nagakabuhi,” says Dave Demegillo, student-volunteer from John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University.
“Fulfilling nga nakabulig kami sa gamay nga bagay, naka interact sa iban nga volunteers. Grabe ang effort,” says Christine of UPV Pahinungod.
“Paagi sa amon collective efforts makahimo kita sang impact sa amun kapaligiran, kag para maka encourage man sa iban sa amo ni nga event sa sini nga coastal clean-up,” says Fermin Leonor III of UPV Pahinungod.
According to advocate Mr. Ian Varona, each year, they gather tons of garbage from the long stretch of Villa Beach.
This could have been avoided if only the residents were taking their part by not dumping their waste into the sea. This is also true for every person who did not think that one irresponsible garbage disposal could lead to throngs of garbage being brought back from the sea by huge waves during monsoon season and typhoons.
“We’ve been doing this event for the past 5 years. When we came here our beach was in a very bad stage. We are lucky that every year naga grow ang involvement sang community,” says Mr. Ian Varona, local coordinator of International Coastal Cleanup (ICC).
MORE Power turned over 100 gloves and sacks which were used during the clean-up as well as 650 food packs for the volunteers.
“May ara kami gin allocate nga 100 volunteers, isa-isa sila nagbulig sa pag pudyot sang basura. Para ini sa conservatory nga data. While nagapudyot naga collect kami sang data para mabal-an kung paano pa gid makabulig sa pagtinlo sang waterways in the future,” says Glimmer Hope Deslate, Marketing Officer, MORE Power.
The City Environment and Natural Resources Office led the initiative in partnership with MORE Power and other academic and non-government organizations.
In totality, they were able to collect 6,900 kilograms of waste for half a day’s activity.