Litter

The beaches, roads and streets of the Philippines are clogged with litter.  After a storm or rain, the rivers swell and the ocean waves bring in piles of garbage.  It hangs up on the walls and river banks and can be seen on the trees and scrubs lining the roadways.  This beautiful, green and lush country is choking in its own trash.  In order to better understand this phenomenon, one has to delve into the economics underlying the problem.  There is trash pick up but it costs money.  This is money that the average family spends on food and basic needs.  The Filipino's solutio is to throw the trash into the nearest waterway.  This may be a stream, a river, a rice field or even the ditch that runs in front of their home.  All of these waterways fill and during the rainy season, the trash is washed into the Manila Bay or into the cities.  When a city floods, there is often a pile of trash that moves through the neighborhoods.  This year (2012), a wall of trash came to rest against the US Embassy in Manila. Rubber boats cannot be used to rescue people in the floods because they are punctured by objects hidden beneath the surface. In the Pacific Ocean there is a floating island of trash that is twice the size of the United States.  This is a problem that effects us all.