Remember the Titanic? It was the largest ship of its time during the early 1900s, a product of a British passenger line, the White Star Line. The Titanic weighed over 46,000 tons! That is roughly 104.6 million pounds!
Well, here is some trivia from the sea and it is NOT looking good. According to a study conducted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), in a project funded by Grieg Foundation, a Norwegian foundation, Filipinos consume about 2.15 million tons of plastics in a year (equivalent to 41 Titanics!) from which 9% are recycled and 35% leak into the open environment. Just imagine — 35% of all that plastic ends up as plastic waste in the ocean EVERY YEAR!!! And the major pathway that leads to plastic waste in oceans is through ports where there is a high level of activity and traffic.
In 2020, WWF-Philippines partnered with Grieg Foundation for a 3-year project that aims to reduce plastic wastes by 50% in three particular Philippine ports: Manila North Port, Port of Batangas, and Port of Cagayan de Oro.
The project will work to achieve the following objectives:
- Achieve 50% reduction in plastic waste leakage in the three aforementioned Philippine ports;
- Provide input to the Philippines’ National Plan of Action on Marine Litter to highlight the importance of the port industry in addressing plastic pollution; and
- Document the port waste management solutions to enable scaling up in other Philippine and global ports.
In this project, WWF-Philippines works with government agencies, port authorities, local government units, communities, and organizations to implement solutions and interventions to achieve the goals of the project.
A key component of the partnership project called ‘Clean Ports, Clean Oceans: Improving Port Waste Management in the Philippines’ is the conduct of a Solid Waste Management Baseline Study in Philippine ports. The national baseline study found that about 114,927 kgs of plastic waste are generated from ports and 128,970 kg of plastic waste from vessels.
The study attributes the amount of plastic pollution to the waste leakage from ports that happens between collection and disposal – which is connected to the city waste management system. There are at least 552 ports in the country as of this writing and these are the likely pathways for plastic waste going into the oceans.
The diagram below, taken from the study, shows estimated solid waste flow in the Manila North Harbor ALONE during the COVID-19 pandemic 2021. If all port waste in the country is summed up, that is a mind-boggling amount of waste, many of which end up in our oceans.
With the national baseline study results, WWF-Philippines worked with the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA), Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), terminal operators, communities, and concerned LGUs in determining project interventions.
Several measures were also recommended by the study to reduce plastic pollution at ports:
1. Stricter implementation and review of plans, programs, policies, and law
2. Better coordination and teamwork among stakeholders
3. Better data management framework
4. Installation of properly designed and fully functioning Materials Recovery Facilities
5. Installation of trash traps at drainage outfalls when necessary
6. Monitoring and utilization of plastic wastes
7. Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) campaigns
8. Standardization of waste bin color-coding scheme
Watch this video.
With this project, WWF-Philippines will identify and implement solutions with the concerned PPA – Port Management Offices (PMOs) in Manila North Port, Port of Batangas, and Port of Cagayan de Oro. The project looks to document these solutions so that other Philippine ports can adopt these solutions to stop plastic pollution.
I am looking forward to the next update on this initiative and hope to see clear improvements in the handling, and reduction, of plastic waste in ports and in our oceans.
To learn more about WWF and the Solid Waste Management Baseline Study in Philippine Ports, please visit: wwf.org.ph/what-we-do/plastics/cleanportscleanoceans/.