Typhoon Rai leaves trail of plastic trash for residents of Philippine sinking island

A deluge of plastic waste washed over the island of Batasan in Tubigon, Bohol in the aftermath of the country's deadliest typhoon in December. The piles of debris are a grim reminder of the country's chronic marine trash problem.

Baltazar Mejares, a 52-year-old father of four, scampered in the dark with his family to reach higher ground as the sea swelled to four metres high on the night of 16 December 2021, when the year’s deadliest typhoon hammered Batasan Island in Tubigon, Bohol in the Philippines where they live.

Tethered together with a length of rope, Mejares and his family survived.

That night, Typhoon Rai forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, killing more than 400 people, injuring over a thousand in the northern coast of Mindanao and the Visayas island group where Batasan Island is found.

On the water, Enrico Cosare shielded himself in a mangrove as Typhoon Rai ravaged the islands.

Cosare, a boatman who ferries passengers from the main province of Bohol to the island, considers the mangroves as the safest place for his boat during stormy weather with the trees as natural barriers against the waves and strong winds.

He surmised that the waste may come from more populous areas when he saw a bank passbook from the province of Cebu, caught in the mangroves.

At daybreak, he and fellow islanders were hit by the destruction and debris strewn on the 54-hectare stretch of mangrove—an area equivalent to over eighty football pitches. Plastic bags, empty coffee, toothpaste and shampoo sachets, and woven plastic sacks hung from the leafless branches.

Batasan Island is one of the six island communities of Tubigon, Bohol in the Philippines. Since the 2013 earthquake, the islands have flooded to a depth of 43 centimeters. Source: Nature Climate Change, Image: Philip Amiote/ Eco-Business

Enrico Cosare pulls his bandong, a local boat. Behind him is the 54-hectare mangrove of Batasan Island.

The barangay council spearheaded clearing operations of the plastic debris that infiltrated the island. In photo is Baltazar Mejares (left), a member of the barangay council, with the council's head Rodrigo Cosicol (right).

"Our mangroves are now like Christmas trees. By looking at the plastic bags stuck in it, you can tell how high the tide went that night"

Enrico Cosare, boatman

“Our mangroves are now like Christmas trees. By looking at the plastic bags stuck in it, you can tell how high the tide went that night,” said Cosare.

Further inland on Batasan island, the detritus left by the storm was everywhere. Piles of trash invaded homes, buildings, with even a schoolchair getting caught in tree branches.

Together with youth volunteers, the island’s barangay (town) council has been spearheading clean-up operations every week of the month, collecting trash across the island.

Clearing operations started at Lawis, the island's promontory, and is ongoing until the reef's opposite end. The trash is then dumped into a remote area in the peninsula. Patchy waste management between the islands and the mainland could mean that it is left there indefinitely, especially now that local authorities are attending to 33 other barangays that are worse hit by the typhoon.

Removing the immense waste left on the island has become an enormous challenge, said Mejares, also a member of the barangay council, whose own front yard was crammed with debris.

"Volunteers are only available on Sundays because we need to earn a living during the week. There is no dump truck and no technology whatsoever. Plastics, sacks and unusable clothes are a big problem to dispose and we have not thought of any solution yet."

The plastic waste is not just a by-product of the island becoming increasingly vulnerable to storms, but also due to the country's chronic marine litter problem. After China and Indonesia, the Philippines ranks as the world’s third biggest polluter, with 2.7 million metric tonnes of plastic waste generated each year.

Coleen Salamat, plastic solutions campaigner of envrionmental watchdog EcoWaste Coalition, noted that even if the local government unit collects Batasan Island's plastic trash, it will not be enough to stem the flow of rubbish the next time there will be a typhoon.

"Every typhoon season seems like a reminder to us that plastics will always find its way to our ecosystem. Plastic trash is a problem at source that goes beyond waste management issues," Salamat told Eco-Business.

"Without regulation of banning single-use plastic and its continued production, storms will continue to aggravate the plastics in the island."

Clear sea waters invade the front yard of the Baltazar Mejares’ residence during tidal flooding (left) but after Typhoon Rai, the space was crammed with debris (right).
Clear sea waters invade the front yard of the Baltazar Mejares’ residence during tidal flooding (left) but after Typhoon Rai, the space was crammed with debris (right).

A school chair, along with plastic bags, are caught in the branches of a tree in Batasan Island.

Clearing the debris and waste materials that flooded their island in the aftermath of Typhoon Rai has become an enormous challenge for the residents of Batasan Island.

Plastic and waste materials stormed into what remains of houses in Batasan Island.

Living with rising seas

Despite facing more adverse weather and rising sea levels, residents would rather defiantly wade through water for months in a year than desert their homeland.

An elongated peninsula resting on a shallow reef flat at the Cebu Strait, Batasan is one of Tubigon’s six island barangays and is about four miles from the Bohol mainland.

While being battered by storms is an unusual occurrence, flooding is not. For more than a third of the year, a high tide pushes seawater across the floors of houses and buildings for about four hours a day, submerging the entire island.

The phenomenon on Batasan Island began in 2013, after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook the area, causing the land to subside by about one metre. Rising sea levels attributed to climate change have exacerbated the problem. It is only going to get worse as the world struggles to cap the average rise of global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius—a benchmark pegged by scientists that will help limit the rise of sea levels.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that global mean sea levels will rise between one to three feet by the 2100.

The foreign affairs department's maritime and oceans office of climate-vulnerable Philippines told the United Nations in a meeting last June that the country's "future survival is at risk if sea-level rise is allowed to go on unabated."

"It is no surprise that many of them are reluctant to leave. Involuntary relocation may lead to greater vulnerability, due to loss of social capital and sense of identity"

Laurice Jamero, researcher and contributing author to the sixth assessment report of the IPCC

Experts fear that flooding will become more frequent, possibly drawing more plastic trash from afar. Filipino scientist Laurice Jamero and a team of Japan-based researchers released a 2017 report explaining how extreme sea-level rise has negatively affected the environmental, social and economic aspects on low-lying islands like Batasan.

Despite experiencing total land subsidence, residents refuse to relocate. The population is even increasing, according to Jamero’s study.

Instead, locals have adapted by building houses on stilts. Coral that is mined from the ocean is used to bolster and raise floors. Belongings are placed on higher shelves to prevent them from being washed away with makeshift platforms elevating cookers. Chair legs have been modified to make them longer.

Because flooding is now a way of life, school is no longer cancelled. Students go to class barefoot, perched on stools, keeping their school bags on a table that sits on higher ground.

Communities have resolved to stay despite a government relocation programme where permanent houses will be built in Bohol for those who opt-in. But only 70 out of more than 300 families have signed up to move. Batasan’s 871 inhabitants rely heavily on subsistence fishing in the area and would prefer to reside on the island rather than venture into a new livelihood and an unfamiliar environment.

“It is no surprise that many of them are reluctant to leave. Involuntary relocation may lead to greater vulnerability, due to loss of social capital and sense of identity. Attachment to place, which is closely linked to a sense of pride associated with belonging to a community, has also been shown to be a powerful determinant of the final decision to migrate,” said Jamero, a contributing author to the sixth assessment report of the IPCC released last year.

After feeling the full wrath of Typhoon Rai, some are rethinking that decision.

Octogenarian Mamai Goc-ong, who was born and raised on the island, said that they did not expect the rapid intensification of Rai, that left a trail of destruction, tearing through their houses and boats.

Goc-ong said: “I was left sleepless and shivering in the cold as all my clothes and belongings were washed away with my house. I want to leave the island now in case there will be another strong typhoon.”

With their houses and belongings washed away by the storm, 80-year-old Mamai Goc-ong (seated) with her brother Cristino and his wife Eleuteria, both 71, (standing) take refuge at a niece’s residence.

A deluge of plastic waste washed over the island of Batasan in Tubigon, Bohol in the aftermath of the country's deadliest typhoon in December. The piles of debris are a grim reminder of the country's chronic marine trash problem.

"Our mangroves are now like Christmas trees. By looking at the plastic bags stuck in it, you can tell how high the tide went that night"

Living with rising seas

"It is no surprise that many of them are reluctant to leave. Involuntary relocation may lead to greater vulnerability, due to loss of social capital and sense of identity"

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