Excerpt from newsinfo.inquirer.net
The kids of Mambacayao Island — a fisherfolk community near the Visayan Sea —know this best. After all, their fathers and grandfathers fish in these waters and see their daily haul increasingly include not just of fish but plastic.
Plastic seems to be everywhere in these waters, including inside the bellies of many of the fish that are caught.
So, every Saturday, young men and teeners swim a few kilometers off the shore to collect the garbage underwater that the currents had brought to this marine sanctuary.
The plastic waste that is either entangled in the corals or lying on the seabed is composed of a variety of sachets of consumer products like soap and shampoo, soft drink bottles, and batteries discarded by fishermen who use them in night fishing.
Sea sweepers
“We’re sweepers of the sea,” said 19-year-old Aldrin Dacomos. “We get everything we can find.”
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