Volunteers Participate International Coastal Clean-up Day

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - SEPTEMBER 15: Plastic waste are seen washed up on the shores and mangroves of Freedom Island as volunteers (not pictured) collect plastic waste to mark International Coastal Clean-up Day on September 15, 2023 in Las Pinas, Metro Manila, Philippines. The Philippines remains one of the largest ocean polluters in the world, contributing a third of the 80% of global ocean plastic that comes from Asian rivers, according to a 2021 report by Oxford University's Our World in Data. Poverty has led the Philippines to become a "sachet economy" that consumes 163 million sachets every day, worsening marine plastic pollution in the region. The trash is piling up on land, clogging coastlines, spilling into the sea, and traveling to remote corners of the globe, as the country fails to meet targets for improved waste management that it signed into law more than two decades ago. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)