Collecting waste from Buhangin Creek in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, in March. The creek eventually flows into the Pasig River and Manila Bay.
Photographer: Geric Cruz/BloombergManila’s Trash-Choked River Holds Key to Fight Against Ocean Plastics
Past leaders have tried and failed to rehabilitate the Pasig River, but President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is taking on the task with renewed enthusiasm.
At a trash-choked, putrid creek in the heart of the Philippine capital, 63-year-old Xerxes Luna is helping fight the world’s battle against marine plastic pollution.
With eight co-workers, Luna spends entire days hauling hundreds of sacks of plastic bottles, detergent sachets and styrofoam containers from a tributary of the Pasig River, Manila’s main waterway. They use boats, bamboo rafts and trash traps to prevent garbage from being flushed into Manila Bay and into the sea.