It is a shame that the Philippines rivers are so full of garbage. There should be dedicated teams to collecting all the garbage. Instead the Philippines gets dedicated foreigners to clean up their mess. Recently Australian Mike Smith led a ten day clean up and collected 100,000 kilograms of trash.
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| https://pop.inquirer.net/359187/saving-ph-waters-aussie-citizen-attempts-to-revive-dying-pateros-river |
Some of the world’s biggest problems, like trash-filled water bodies, have been a major problem faced by the Philippines. Among the 19 polluted rivers in the country is the infamous Pateros.
A recent viral post on Instagram captured many Filipinos’ attention as an Australian man led the Pateros River cleaning mission.
The cleaning project in the country started a few months back. Headed by Mike Smith, founder of ZeroCo—an Australian company that advocates and markets zero-waste cleaning and personal care products—along with ZeroCo Philippines’ cleanup crew, the initiative aims to save the Philippine rivers before the trash flows into the ocean, living up their mission to ‘untrash the ocean.’
The Pateros is not the only river they cleaned as they already visited several Philippine rivers like the Tanza Marine Tree Park.
Many were amazed and grateful for Smith and urged the Filipino community to support the latter’s content and account, while others expressed that it should be a shame for the locals as they were not able to do the same.
Smith’s company is on a mission to stop single-use plastic and sells zero-waste products. With over 24 million bottles collected in the waters to date, which they turn into refillable ‘forever bottles,’ every single penny they earn goes toward funding large-scale ocean cleanups worldwide.
This is certainly laudable and it is a shame that foreigners have to the jobs Filipinos should be doing. Maybe that is why the Mayor of Pateros, instead of praising Mike Smith and his team, called him irresponsible.
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| https://mb.com.ph/2024/3/29/pateros-mayor-says-dirtiest-river-cleaned-up-by-aussie-activist-located-in-taguig |
Pateros Mayor Miguel Ponce III clarified that the “dirtiest river” cleaned up by an Australian environmental activist and entrepreneur is located in Taguig City and not in the municipality.
Australian Mike Smith, founder of Zero Co., led the cleanup for 10 days of what he said was a river located in Pateros.
“The Pateros in Manila (Philippines) is the dirtiest river I’ve ever seen. Over the last week together with @zeroco.com.au and @thehiddenseawine we removed every single piece of rubbish,” he said in a Facebook post.
He said he and more than 240 Filipino volunteers removed more than 100,000 kilos of trash from the river.
Ponce said the river is located in Barangay Rizal, which is now under Taguig and formerly under the supervision of Makati. In a decision which became final last year, the Supreme Court transferred 10 barangays including Rizal from Makati to Taguig.
“Actually there is nothing like that in Pateros,” Ponce told Manila Bulletin, adding that this is the reason why the Pateros municipal government posted a clarification on its official Facebook page.
He added, “You will not see a river like that in Pateros. Now I’m wondering why this Australian Mike Smith said it was Pateros river. This is in the boundary.”
"The truth is, what they cleaned up was an area in Barangay Rizal which was formerly part of Makati and now under Taguig,” Ponce clarified.
The mayor said Smith was with Taguig volunteers for the cleanup and Pateros was never contacted about this even the barangay nearest to the river.
Ponce said what was interviewed were residents of Barangay Rizal, Taguig.
He said the river that Smith cleaned up was the “Taguig-Pateros river but never Pateros river.”
“I hope these irresponsible statements should be verified first. The problem is when territory is being discussed, takeover and income, it’s about Taguig or Makati. But when waste is being discussed, they throw it at Pateros. This is not right, isn’t it?,” said Ponce.
Now, this is ridiculous, petty, and blatantly false. Mike Smith did not say he was in Pateros he said the Pateros River was the dirtiest he had ever seen. And there IS a Pateros River. It is not the same as the Taguig River.
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_and_estuaries_in_Metro_Manila |
While the Taguig River joins the Pateros River there is no Taguig-Pateros River. Even if the area he cleaned up was close to where the two rivers join this is just a ridiculous quibbling over words
And to make it even more shameful this Australian is hiring local Filipinos to clean up the rivers.
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| https://www.instagram.com/mikesmithprojects/reel/C2ZbqptPxQh/ |
Over the past few months we’ve been quietly scaling our cleanup operation in The Philippines. We now employ 12 locals on the ground to do cleanups and we’re collecting over 4 MILLION water bottles worth of ocean and river waste every month. Our goal for 2024? 50 MILLION WATER BOTTLES OF OCEAN WATE COLLECTED
Why aren't LGUs doing this? Why aren't they doing more to clean up their own nation? Instead they would rather hoist large banners so no one can see the dirty water ways. It's more than just a shame. It is a dereliction of duty.
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