Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation, Inc.
SWEEP (Sea Waste Education to Eradicate Plastic) is a program of PRRCFI to fight plastic pollution, funded by USAID through their Municipal Waste Reduction Program.
SWEEP started in April 2018 and focused on 8 municipalities and cities on Negros Island. These are Bacolod, Sipalay and Bayawan Cities and Cauayan, Hinobaan, Basay, Siaton and Sta. Catalina municipalities.
PRRCFI has been doing coastal clean ups since 1991, one of the main activities of its Marine and Wildlife Camps for the Youth. Each year, the problem got worse, and this is when the foundation decided to focus more on finding solutions to the single-use plastic problem.
Hawksbill turtle found entangled in a plastic sack in Danjugan Island. It was rescued and released back into the wild. (Photo by Danjugan Island guest: Gerry Torres)
SWEEP kicked off with a series of coastal clean ups and audits, as well as city sweep walks. These activities were meant to raise awareness of the gravity of the plastic problem today and audit the waste collected to dig deeper into the root cause of the problem. To date, we have led and participated in 37 clean ups and engaged over 3400 people.
Mobile Museum Design Thinking Workshop
In this SWEEP Mobile Museum and Solid Waste Management Design Thinking Workshop, initial data gathered from the SWEEP coastal clean ups and current statistics of marine plastic pollution were translated into creative information, education and communication campaign strategies and materials, designed together with our key partners, community members and local government representatives.
We wanted to be able to communicate the issues in a creative way, this was how the “Fishbolan” Mobile Museum was born. The Fishbolan is essentially designed as a traditional Filipino food cart, but the items displayed all relate to the problems of plastic. For the problem to hit home for many, we highlighted that plastic has made its way into our food chain – as represented by mock food made out of plastics, a juice dispenser filled with plastics, as well as displays on how long it takes for certain plastic products degrade (if at all) and its impacts to wildlife.
