The International Coastal Cleanup is a global movement celebrated every third Saturday of September yearly and being participated by more than 100 countries across the globe, including the Philippines, as we rally the community towards a common goal of collecting and documenting the trash littering the coastline. In 2017, the Philippines ranked #1 with the most number of volunteers, but on the contrary, the country is ranked #3 as the biggest dumper of plastics in the ocean. According to the Ocean Trash Index, the world’s largest item-by-item, location-by-location database of trash found in near-shore environments as a result of the data submitted by all the volunteers of ICC, plastic debris remains a growing concern in the marine environment.

Youth to unleash inner heroes in 2018 International Coastal Cleanup Summit. (2018, September 25). Manila Standard, p. B4.