Santa Fe ‘War on Waste’ Collects 118T Pieces of Trash
Volunteers during the second War on Waste (WOW) recently conducted in the Municipality of Santa Fe collected 118,000 pieces of trash.
WOW is a joint project between the local government and local sectors.
They started last month with a thousand volunteers and hauled just over 3,000 non-biodegradable materials from the coastal areas.
But this time, the numbers are more than tripled.
Christopher Hubahib, vice president of Santa Fe Tourism Enterprise Association (SAFETEA) and secretary internal, said there were more than 3,300 volunteers who joined the activity and collected 118,000 non-biodegradable materials.
This time, WOW covered not only the coastal but also the inland and upland areas.
It covered six coastal barangays, namely: Marikaban, Pook, Poblacion, Talisay, Okoy, Balidbid and also the Island barangay of Hilantagaan.
Hubahib said the garbage collected were mostly plastic containers, grocery bags, cigarette butts, metal and plastic bottle caps, slippers, fishing nets, straws, Styrofoam, diapers, beverage bottles, etc.
Nelson Yuvallos, SAFETEA president, said there will come a time when there will be more volunteers but lesser or no more littered garbage to be collected.
One of SAFETEA’s thrusts is to get the cooperation of all resorts, restaurants, transport and the rest of the tourism stakeholders to take care of the municipality’s environment since it is its economic driver.
Santa Fe Mayor Jose Esgana said the clean up was overwhelming since it was participated also by the members of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and the Department of Education (Deped).
“There has to be discipline from our end, how can we impose violations from our tourists and visitors if we are not doing it ourselves, so I am happy with the turnout,” Esgana said.
He said the Municipality is among the first five municipalities that are included in the P40-million allocation by the Cebu Provincial Government for solid waste equipment.
“If we can sustain the war on waste then this municipality will remain ‘Wow Santa Fe’,” the mayor said.
Santa Fe accommodates a minimum of 5,000 tourists a month, except summer time when visitors reached 15,000 to 20,000. (fcc/PIA7-Cebu)
