San Miguel Corp. (SMC) reported its river cleanup initiatives at the Pasig River and Tullahan River, both major tributaries crucial to the rehabilitation of the Manila Bay, have exceeded initial targets even as it prepares to ramp up efforts in the coming months with the easing of quarantine restrictions.
SMC president Ramon S. Ang said the company will aim to steadily increase the daily extraction output from the two rivers. This is in anticipation of potential monsoon rains that usually cause heavy floods in Metro Manila cities near the 27-kilometer Pasig River, and the cities of Navotas, Malabon, Valenzuela, and Caloocan alongside the 27-kilometer Tullahan River.
Both rivers empty out to the Manila Bay and were included in the list of the world’s top 10 rivers that pollute the oceans with plastic waste, according to a report by research website ourworldindata.org early this year.
The rivers also receive untreated sewage from households and nearby industries.
Pasig and Tullahan Rivers also suffer from heavy siltation limiting their capacity to receive floodwaters.
The Pasig River rehabilitation initiative, a P2 billion project in cooperation with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, aims to extract at least 600,000 metric tons of silt and solid waste per year, in order to clean up the waterway, help improve water quality, and reduce flooding in several cities in Metro Manila.
By December, Ang said the goal is to further increase the extraction capacity for the Tullahan river, as soon as a set of brand new equipment that it acquired, arrives.
Before the year ends, SMC aims to extract a total of over 1 million metric tons of waste from the Tullahan, and expects to hit the 600,000 tons for Sectors One to Five of the project, also before the year ends.
