EDITORIAL - Another issue we have to deal with

Volunteers recently gathered an estimated 41.6 tons of garbage from rivers and coastal areas in Cebu City during a coastal cleanup last Saturday.

In all, that’s around the weight of 20 cars.

And this was just in areas targeted by volunteers. We can only imagine how much garbage there are in areas that aren’t accessible to or areas that weren’t visited by the volunteers.

This is a sobering reminder that there are still other issues we have to be mindful of and never forget. Even as we have to deal the problem of the pandemic, we should not forget that we also have to deal with the problem of improper garbage disposal.

For our editorial last Earth Day we wrote about how this pandemic would result in even more trash, owing to the face masks, face shields, personal protective equipment, and other items that have to be used to ward off COVID-19, as well as to treat those with the coronavirus.

Given this latest development, it seems our prediction isn’t that far off.

Even as a lot of social activity has ceased, most of people forced to stay indoors, and most of business and other economic activities halted, there still seems to be a substantial number of trash finding its way into our rivers and seas. And since garbage doesn’t have legs, that can only mean that humans placed them there, or disposed of them somewhere they shouldn’t have and they ended up there as a result.

We also cautioned about the nature of the kind of trash that will become more common; these are plastics that will take practically years, if not decades, to biodegrade. Meaning they will stay longer where they end up. So that complicates the problem even more.

Improper waste disposal continues to be a huge contributing factor to flooding in many areas of the city. What makes this more alarming is that with nature seemingly serving up more and stronger storms, we can only expect worsening floods if we do nothing to address this issue.