LAOAG CITY — Volunteers and some coastal residents in Currimao, Ilocos Norte collected about 700 kilograms of plastic wastes dumped at the Pangil Rocks Garden after a week of cleanup.
Due to the Habagat season, it was believed that the accumulated plastics, mostly composed of plastic bottles and containers, styropor and other trash came from ships elsewhere.
Currimao Mayor Gladys Go Que, while thanking the volunteers, said the trash along the municipality’s shoreline were immediately cleaned-up but netizens were so quick to share the photos and these went viral in Facebook.
The shoreline clean-up run for a week from May 5.
For the local government unit of Currimao, the Pangil Rocks Garden is a protected landscape governed by existing local ordinances and the dumping of wastes is strictly prohibited, she said in an interview on Friday.
With its captivating beauty, hundreds of picnickers visit the rocks formation being promoted as an eco-tourism park and there are those who just leave their garbage there.
Que believes the huge volume of garbage seen last week along the Currimao coast did not come from the area but from ships seen nearby.
Que enjoins the help of everyone to become responsible stewards of nature and dispose waste properly.
Several trash bins were placed in strategic areas along the Pangil Rocks Garden to discourage people from littering, she said.(Leilanie Adriano/PNA)
