TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan — To help stop marine pollution and ensure the preparedness of the local industry with the influx of visitors this summer season, a coastal and highway cleanup drive was launched in the tourist destination economic zone in Santa Ana town.
The Cagayan Economic Zone Authority kicked off its cleanup drive last week in partnership with the Palaui Environmental Protectors Association, Palaui-San Vicente Motorboat Association or Pasamoba, Reef Rangers, Island Guides, among others.
Joyce Marie Jayme-Calimag, Ceza public relations chief, said the Saharra Santa Ana, an association of hotels, resorts and restaurants, and this town’s barangay units have also joined the cleanup.
“The cleanup involves removal of trash from the shore, cleaning of highways, loading of the collected garbage and disposing them to the designated disposal area,” Calimag said.
Calimag cited studies made by the United States Ocean Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit organization, showing tons of garbage—made of plastic and other materials that take long period of decomposition making it very hazardous to marine life—end up in the oceans every year.
USOC claims that China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are spewing out as much as 60 percent of the plastic waste that enters the world’s seas.
The organization fears that at this rate, there will be one ton of plastic for every three tons of fish in the oceans by 2025 which is “an unthinkable number with drastic economic and environmental consequences.”
“Our cleanup activity at the ecozone is part of Ceza’s efforts to also protect and maintain the beautiful beaches of the Cagayan Freeport, as well as the marine life and the tourism industry that highly depend on the area’s natural attractions,” Calimag added.
She said that in the five Asian countries listed by USOC, only about 40 percent of garbage is properly collected and that trash is often piled up in communal dumps where stray bits are swept up by the wind and cast into the ocean.
“At Cagayan ecozone, want to be part of Asia’s garbage pickers called the unsung heroes of conservation who brave filth and disease to root through trash and extract plastic that can be sold to recyclers for a little cash,” Calimag said.
Ceza was created under Republic Act 7922 or the Cagayan Special Economic Zone Act of 1995 signed by then President Fidel Ramos to manage and supervise the development of the 54,118-hectare Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport in Santa Ana town that includes the islands of Fuga, Barit and Mabbag in Aparri town.