Picture of the Week: Don't Dump your Garbage here

"Don't Dump Your Garbage Here," reads the sign. How hard is it to not trash up someone else's property? For Filipinos it is incredibly hard. 

That is only one of the many garbage piles around town. 

No doubt everyone who dumped their garbage here looked at the sign and thought, "You can't tell me what to do."

Broken Fluorescent Lights Tossed in the Grass

I have so many pictures of the Philippines that have been holed up on my hard drive waiting to see the light of day. A lot of these pictures are of trash. It really boggles my mind the way people toss their garbage and I don't mean like a bag of household waste or food. That's understandable sure. It's wrong but I get it. What I will never understand is stuff like this:

That is a large pile of fluorescent lights tossed out on the side of the road. How did they get there? Who has this many burned out fluorescent lights to throw on the side of the road? This is not normal house trash. This is the garbage of an electrician. And he did not just toss them on the side of the road. No, he took his time to hide them behind some tall grass.

It's sad but there is nothing to be done about it except look and document. Eventually someone removed these broken lights but they were replaced with bags of garbage and boxes of empty liquor bottles. In the Philippines the environment just can't win.

Evolution of an Illegal Garbage Dump

Outside of a resettlement area not far from here is an illegal dumping ground. I pass it frequently and it is interesting to watch it's evolution. Here is a picture from earlier in the year with a huge sign telling people they should stop tossing their garbage here.

Here is the same sign a few weeks later and someone has spray painted over it.

As ever the dogs are scavenging.  You can see them in the background.

As you may have guessed nobody cares and the people have completely ignored that sign. Eventually the weather wore it down and it is now gone. I have caught people dumping here many times day and night.

The problem with this dump is not the breaking of the law per se but the fact that this garbage dump is on the side of the road next sugar cane fields. The wind blows, the stray dogs scrounge, and the garbage gets strewn everywhere. It does not matter that the garbage truck picks up the majority of the trash.

They cannot pick up everything, only the big bags. There is always filth left over and much of it sinks into the soil especially after the rain.

There is also a little creek there and it too is full of trash.

I admit that it is a little hard to make out but that is a creek which runs through the sugarcane fields on either side of the road. It's dry in this picture but when the rainy season comes it is very wet and the garbage gets disseminated far and wide. 

There are no pictures I can take that will accurately convey the overwhelming stink and the absolute filth of this area. The environment is totally polluted and the air is wholly offensive. What is to be done? I don't know. Maybe a large metal dumpster or two could be placed here. Obviously people will continue to toss their trash here. People are even scavenging this dumpsite.

It's pretty gross and it does not have to be this way. But it is this way and that appears to be how it will remain.

DENR Dumps Massive Load of Litter on the Shores of Manila Bay

Does anyone in the Philippine government actually care about fixing the degraded state of the nation's environment? Apparently not. Last year Duterte disbanded the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission calling the river uncleanable and the project a waste of time.  Most of their powers were transferred to the DENR. 

In their bid to clean up Manila Bay the DENR has recently decided the best course of action to take is  dumping litter all over its shores. 

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2020/09/03/2039869/white-sanding-along-manila-bay-will-not-make-it-cleaner-denr-reminded

Piles of white sand are being dumped along the shore of Manila Bay, Department of Environment and Natural Resources Undersecretary Benny Antiporda said, in a bid to transform the bay—known for its stunning sunset views and garbage-strewn, murky waters—into something similar to popular tourist destination Boracay. 

"Here in Manila, we know that there are many who are poor. We will bring the white sand closer to them so it is like they are in Boracay even if they are just on Roxas Boulevard. That is what we aim to achieve here," Antiporda said in Filipino in an interview on radio DZBB. 

But the move to fill the 500-meter stretch with white sand—actually crushed dolomite boulders, according to Antiporda—did not sit well with environmental groups, who said the dumping could cause more harm to Manila Bay. 

Fishers group PAMALAKAYA called the project “completely absurd and highfaluting.” 

“[This is] artificial rehabilitation focusing on aesthetic appearance rather than addressing the environmental degradation problems [of Manila Bay],” Fernando Hicap, PAMALAKAYA national chairperson, said in a statement. 

“Filling of white sand would less likely contribute to the rehabilitation and restoration of degrading Manila Bay,” he added.

Is Undersecretary Benny Antiporda joking? Is that a joke? They want to bring the white sands of Boracay to the poor people in Manila? And they're going to do this by dumping hundred of tons of crushed dolomite along the shore of Manila Bay to the tune of P397.9 million and at the risk of destabilizing the habitat of the bay as well as the area where the rock was mined? The DENR, the Department of Energy and Natural Resources, is going to clean up Manila Bay by destroying the Philippines' natural resources?

Oh wait the DENR has already decided, without any evidence, that there won't be any detrimental impact on the environment because it's rehabilitation project and not a construction project!

The project to give Manila Bay a makeover by pouring “white sand” on its shoreline does not have to go through the process of preparing an environmental impact study and obtaining a compliance certificate, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources said. 

Projects in the country that may affect the environment need to go through the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) process and get an environmental compliance certificate (ECC), environmental lawyer Gloria Estenzo-Ramos said as a response to the move of the DENR to fill Manila Bay’s naturally dark shoreline with “white sand” as part of the government’s program to rehabilitate the degraded waterway. 

But DENR Undersecretary Benny Antiporda said the “beach nourishment” project is not covered by the country’s EIS system. 

“It is a rehabilitation project, not a construction project. It’s only a beach nourishment [project] in which we’re beautifying it,” Antiporda told Philstar.com in a phone interview.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/09/03/2040084/no-environmental-impact-study-needed-manila-beach-nourishment-denr

Unbelievable!

Night Trash 8

Night trash!  Did you forget about night trash?  I haven't. How could anyone forget night trash once they encounter it? Hungry dogs sniffing around for a midnight snack toppling over garbage cans and tearing open bags looking for a tasty treat are the source of night trash.

Basura Run

How trashy and disgusting is the Philippines?  It its so trashy and disgusting that there is a Basura Run where runners jog around town picking up trash in a competition to see who can collect the most and heaviest sacks of trash!

https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/256689/basura-run-volunteers-collect-sacks-of-garbage-from-cebu-rest-of-ph

September 7 may seemed like an ordinary Saturday for the rest of us, but for the Earth warriors who collected sacks of plastic garbage that were dumped in parts of Cebu and the rest of the country, it was a special day for doing their mission of saving Mother Earth. 

Cebu City supporters of the 5pcs Daily Habit collected at least five sacks of plastic garbage while they did their run along Osmeña Boulevard starting at 6 a.m. 

Basura run participants in Carcar City collected 14 sacks of plastic garbage.  The group also included teachers from the Carcar City district. 

Tony Galon, founder of the 5 pcs Daily Habit and Basura Run, joined a group of volunteers in Naga City. He alone collected a sando bag full of plastic garbage during his one kilometer run. 

In Cebu, at total of 14 Basura Run groups did their clean-up in the cities of Cebu, Carcar and Naga and the municipalities of Minglanilla and Cordova.  Simultaneous runs were also held in other parts of the country including the cities of Davao, Butuan and Bacolod City and Biliran. 

But their effort was not enough. 

Galon said that starting 2020, he wanted to already invite all the barangays in Cebu and the rest of the country to join their annual Basura run to expand their coverage. 

“To have a Basura Run on every barangay in the Philippines,  we need to improve the message, awareness that basura run exists,” says Galon. 

“Basura Run can’t clean a place entirely, but we can teach the people how to clean their place,” he says. 

The Basura Run is a community service by volunteers, who play the role of Earth warriors, to raise public awareness on the importance of responsible garbage disposal. The group holds an annual run where in volunteers would pick up every piece of plastic garbage that they would see along the way. 

Look at those guys smiling with their bags of garbage like wow they did a great thing. What a low when you have to resort to game theory in order to clean up the environment because there is so much garbage. It is exactly like when a parent plays airplane to get their child to eat.  You know when they pretend the spoon is an airplane and the mouth is a landing strip? That is baby stuff.

Tony Galon is the founder of the Basura Run as well as 5 pcs Daily Habit. Let's see what that is all about.

Its a habit armed to raise awareness to all the people that we need to do something for our current garbage situation not only in Cebu but all over the Philippines 

Started on January 1, 2015 as a New Year's resolution of TONY GALON, a runner, after seeing most of the runners while running just throw away their water bottles anywhere, an add up to the growing problem knowing the existing condition on our garbage not just in CEBU but all over the Philippines. 

It is an advocacy of runners and that of ordinary people that are looking forward for the future of our children by way of picking up 5 pieces of plastic daily and throw into the proper trash bin. We did this because we believe that doing so will we can convince you to NOT TO THROW TRASHES anywhere especially PLASTIC. 

We know that the 5 pieces of plastic waste shall not cleanse a city or town or even a village, but we believe that we attract notable that there is concern for the problem of litter or happen to be the main cause of FLOODS.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/5pcs-Daily-Habit-893731587366671/about/?ref=page_internal

Is this a joke? What kind of person tosses their water bottle just anywhere? I am a runner and I have never seen that. I also don't ever carry a bottle of water with me. Who does that? My average run is about 5 miles and even when I worked myself up to longer runs including half-marathons just for fun I never carried a water bottle. Are these runners so weak that they need to carry a water bottle? No way are they running so far and long that they risk dehydration. Maybe they are out in the sun? But I have gone running in the heat of the day around 2pm and still I had no need to carry a water bottle. There really is nothing like wearing yourself out and then drinking an ice cold bottle of water when you return home. Very refreshing and worth the wait.

Zamboanga had their second Basura Run in October 2018 and they gave out prizes to the heaviest bag of garbage.

The participants filled up their empty sacks with plastic wastes while they run and upon reaching the Tugbungan Elementary School, the trash collected were weighed and sorted and the groups or individuals with the heaviest trash were awarded with prizes.

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1770924

The nature of the prizes isn't revealed. 

Well you can't fault these guys. The Basura Run is well intentioned and is a good thing. But the fact that such a run exists says a lot about the state of the Philippines. A nation awash in garbage. They even admit it!

Night Trash 6: Philippines ‘official dump site’ of Southeast Asia

Night trash! Spread all over the road like peanut butter on a slice of bread but not edible at all. Strewn about like the stars in the sky but not pretty to look at.  That is the poetry of night trash.

Look at all that poetry. Trash spangled roadways representing the scavenging of hungry dogs which are left to roam about in the solitary night.

So cry me a river at the Philippines being the official dumpsite of Southeast Asia.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1124709/philippines-official-dump-site-of-southeast-asia-lacson

“Sad but true, there is already a bandwagon of nations that designate our country as the official dumpsite of Southeast Asia,” Lacson said in a privilege speech. 

“To say that our country is treated like trash appears to be true, as in literally, amid news reports of tons of waste being illegally shipped into our lands, no thanks to local and foreign smugglers, unscrupulous Customs brokers and corrupt Customs officials,” he said.

BOO-HOO!!! 

Filipinos Leave Garbage all over Cemetery

Whatever the occasion in the Philippines there is always food to be had. Be it a town fiesta or the death of a loved one. After lowering the casket and saying the last words it's snack time! Not meal time back at the church or elsewhere. Snack time right then and there at the cemetery.

That means juice boxes or small soda bottles and sandwiches wrapped in plastic. Being the careless people they are Filipinos toss the empty cartons and wrappers wherever they please with no regard to the environment or the sanctity of the dead. 

They might as well toss their trash in Lolo's grave.  It wouldn't be any less despicable.

Night Trash 2

Night trash!  You have to wake up pretty early to see the night trash. Night trash is what happens when hungry stray dogs go prowling for food. They knock over trashcans, rip open bags, and feast upon rotten food and dirty diapers.  Yum! There is nothing finer in life for a mangy stray no one loves than finding a feast hidden away in a trash bin.

Garbage That Should Not Be

Huge piles of litter and garbage are not an uncommon sight in the Philippines.  Still when you see a huge pile of garbage that simply should not be you can't help shake your head and wonder how any one can be so stupid and irresponsible.

Here we have a line of food carts outside a school.  

Very profitable place to be.  Hungry students and passersby will make any vendor a small fortune every day.  

With all that money how can these guys not afford to buy a roll of cheap garbage bags for their customers to dispose of their trash? The customers stand on the sidewalk, eat their food, and toss the garbage on the ground in the area next to the school.

That is a whole lot of garbage. Why even allow this kind of nonsense to happen? Perhaps the school could put out waste cans so everyone can properly dispose of their garbage.  Garbage cans would teach the children to not litter.  Isn't that desirable?  As it is now even children just toss their trash in the street or in the woods or wherever they happen to be standing.  Education at an early age is the only way anyone is going to learn. But these children will learn nothing and the Philippines will continue to be a garbage dump.