Leonardo DiCaprio is no stranger to making speeches and posting about climate change and similar problems affecting the world today.
This week, he has made another post related to this issue – and it has touched the hearts of Filipinos because the beach he had posted is in the Philippines.
Have you heard of Freedom Island in Manila Bay? Not everyone knows that there exists an island of that name in the Philippines. This is actually an artificial island in Manila Bay located just off the coast of Parañaque.
The barrier island is part of a group called the Las Piñas–Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area.
What’s sad about this island is that despite its beauty, there are lots of trash along its beaches – mostly coming from the mainland. It alarmed Greenpeace to see such volume of trash in an island mostly inhabited by migratory birds.
According to Greenpeace, the Philippines is the third biggest source of ocean plastic pollution in the world! Considering how small the Philippines is compared with another nations that line the world’s oceans, this is quite an embarrassing report.
Sadly, a lot of Filipinos still do not know how to reduce and recycle waste materials, leading to the creation of high volumes of trash that go to the rivers and oceans – just as Greenpeace claimed.
The group has organized coastal cleanup activities at Freedom Island. Photos of these would soon be posted on the site and re-shared by DiCaprio.
“Plastic or no plastic. Which do you prefer?
The Philippines is the 3rd biggest source of ocean plastic pollution. This beach near Manila is covered in cheap, disposable, single-use plastic. For over a week, Greenpeace volunteers cleaned it up to find out the companies responsible. Spot the difference?”
Which do you think is better? The clean one, of course. We could only hope that this would serve as wakeup call to all Filipinos to take care of the environment before it is too late…