50 tons of trash left at Rizal Park, says NPDC

Garbage hauling operations at Luneta. Photo courtesy of Manila Public Information Office

MANILA, Philippines — Some 50 metric tons of trash had been collected at the Rizal Park during the Christmas holiday, the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC) reported Friday.

The trash were first collected by the Manila City Department of Public Services, which reported to the NPDC that 50 to 51 metric tons of trash were collected from during garbage hauling operation between late Wednesday (December 25) afternoon and Thursday (December 26) morning.

In a statement, NPDC Executive Director Cecile Lorenzana-Romero said the trash were collected in plastic garbage bags given free to park-goers to encourage them to save their trash during their stay, then throw them later on at the designated garbage bins at the national park.

“We are confirming the huge volume of garbage collected during the Christmas Season at Rizal Park but the garbage collected was less compared to last year,” she said.

NPDC employees, security guards, and police provided free garbage bags to the park goers, she added.

But the NPDC wanted to take it a step further.

Romero said the parks administrators plan to come up with a zero-waste or trash segregation program to “promote discipline among the park-goers and to lessen the impact of trash to the environment.”

She said the NPDC will partner up with the city government of Manila in coming up with programs or workshops for park goers to promote sustainability and environmentally friendly practices in the city.

EcoWaste Coalition earlier slammed what it called as “brazen littering by some uncaring people.”

“While we thank the park maintenance workers for diligently sweeping up after the visitors, we despise the brazen littering by some uncaring people because this is not an OK thing to do,” Jove Benosa, the group’s zero waste campaigner, said in a statement.

Benosa noted that park-goers left behind plastic bags, bottles, cups, plastic utensils, paper, styrofoam food containers, and food leftovers.