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"People used to go swimming in it, and then how grateful [they] are for the work that we're doing in conjunction with the government and other organizations," Mike Smith tells This Week in Asia.
Smith is the Australian founder of Zero Co, a company that makes plastic-free products, and he spent six weeks in the Philippines in 2023 looking for the country's most polluted water systems.
He found the Taguig-Pateros River south of Manila to be particularly polluted, and he organized a team of more than 250 environmental rangers and volunteers to clean it up, Australia's News Network reports.
"That was a light bulb moment," Smith says.
"If we want to have the biggest possible impact on this problem, then let's go to the source of the problem."
According to the Philippines' Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the country is the third-largest source of ocean waste in the world.
Philippines discards an estimated 3.3 kilograms of plastic waste per person into the ocean, with more than 4,800 rivers emitting more than 350,000 metric tons of non-degradable litter.
"People used to go swimming in it, and then how grateful [they] are for the work that we're doing in conjunction with the government and
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Social Entrepreneurship
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Vertical Farming: The Way to Feed a Global Population
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