Manila’s ‘trash bin’ river choking on plastic
MANILA: The blanket of trash on a creek that flows between the makeshift homes of a Manila slum is so dense it appears one could walk across it like a paved street.
The blanket of trash on a creek that flows between the makeshift homes of a Manila slum is so dense it appears one could walk across it like a paved street.
However, the thick and fetid mosaic of plastic bottles, takeaway containers and plastic bags is just a porous layer atop the filthy water of Estero de Magdalena.
It is one of the tributaries that run into Manila’s most important and heavily polluted waterways, the Pasig River.
Many of the people who moved into these postwar shanty towns were from the different provinces. These people come to Manila to find better jobs and lives. They did not have money and were forced into shanty towns.
These makeshift towns and villages do not have basic infrastructure and utilities, like sewage facilities, garbage collection, and running water. This is one of the main reasons that the shanty towns were built along the shores of the Pasig. The people would not need to go far to get fresh water, they could simply put their sewage and garbage in the river as the river would carry it away. They could catch their food and bath in the Pasig. The river became the lifeline for many shanty towns, and it is these villages that were suffocating the river and,
They (residents) are turning the creeks into a trash can. We want to block it at that point so we can easily collect the garbage. We do not want it to flow into the Pasig River. Lorenzo Alconera, an official with the city engineering department.
in turn, destroying their own livelihoods.
Living in the shanty towns can be risky as many were built on stilts above the river, which is prone to flooding during the rainy seasons.
Poor construction causes many of the settlements to be extremely weak against the elements. They can be very dangerous during fires as most of them are built from recycled wood.
Because the majority of the people living on the edges of the river are illegal squatters, it is very difficult to monitor the amount of garbage or waste — or to treat either of them. It is estimated that 65 per cent of the waste flowing down the Pasig River is due to these illegal settlement villages.
Philippine law states that the government has the legal right to relocate the people in these illegal settlements to three metres away from the banks of the river.
City officials blame the slum’s residents for using the creek as an open-air dump and have installed massive strainers in the water that keeps the trash from flowing downstream.
“They (residents) are turning the creeks into a trash can,” said Lorenzo Alconera, an official with the city engineering department.
“We want to block it at that point so we can easily collect the garbage. We do not want it to flow into the Pasig River,” he added.
Trash that makes it into the river can then be swept out into the South China Sea or be sucked back by tides into the Laguna de Bay, the country’s largest lake.
Plastic pollution is a major problem in the Philippines, which along with China, Vietnam and Indonesia is frequently listed among the world’s worst offenders.
The city says it periodically uses heavy equipment to scoop the rubbish from the water and ends up with five to 10 truck loads of waste to haul away.
That is of little consolation to the impoverished families who live in homes cobbled together from pallets, scraps of wood and corrugated steel stained with rust.
Authorities say the trashchoked creek is a breeding ground for preventable illnesses like cholera and typhoid fever.
Beyond concerns over the infections that thrive in the waterway, residents also have to deal with a constant and unavoidable concern: its stench.
“We cannot properly sleep because of the garbage. Whether it rains or is sunny, there are the smells,” complained 35year- old vendor Marlyn Estrada Calderon. — AFP