Photo courtesy of SM Central Olongapo
By Percy Roxas
OLONGAPO CITY – Thousands of residents here joined the citywide coastal cleanup drive on Saturday (Sept. 16) to mark the 38th International Coastal Cleanup Day.
Dubbed “Making Riverth Possible,” the event brought together volunteers from all 17 barangays of the city to keep the local waterways clean and promote ocean conservation.
Each barangay was given a specific area within its jurisdiction for the cleanup.
The goal was to gather the biggest haul of trash and marine debris from the city’s beaches, rivers, and other waterways this year and to increase the number of participants.
Organizers said they were targetting to surpass last year’s figure with 7,673 cleanup volunteers, but the number of this year’s volunteers has yet to be tallied.
In 2019, some 24, 250 volunteers joined the citywide cleanup drive.
According to the Olongapo City Information Office, it already counted at least 3,000 volunteers at Parola in Barangay Kalaklan and Driftwood Beach in Barangay Baretto.
SM City Olongapo Central and SM City Olongapo Downtown also deployed their own volunteers to join the activity, along with representatives from different government and non-government organizations.
The cleanup drive covered drainage canals and channels around the city, such as those in the villages of New Kalalake, New Ilalim, New Kababae, Banicain, and Sta Rita.
“The citywide cleanup drive aims to encourage city residents to join as volunteers and help in rehabilitating the waterways that suffer from pollution and indiscriminate throwing of waste by households and industrial and commercial establishments,” said Anthony Bayarong, head of the city’s Public Affairs Office.
Freeport Insider has yet to gather data on the total volume of trash collected during the cleanup drive, but the most common types of garbage collected on the riverside and seashores of the city were food wrappers, plastic straws, bottle caps, styrofoam, cigarette butts, used diapers, and plastic bottles. FREEPORT INSIDER
