Norwegian-based Grieg Foundation in cooperation with WWF-Philippines recently launched the “Clean ports, clean ocean” project to improve port waste management in the Philippines.
About the project, Grieg Foundation states that marine litter is one of the fastest-growing environmental problems in the world and threatens biodiversity, ecosystems, and livelihoods. The challenges are particularly pronounced in Southeast Asia, including in the Philippines.
The three-year project aims to reduce the flow of plastic waste entering nature and the ocean in the Philippines, by improving waste management in ports.
The project will focus on three ports and aims to achieve a 50 percent plastic waste reduction in at least 3 Philippine ports, provide input to the Philippine National Plan of Action on Marine Litter to highlight the importance of the port industry in addressing plastic pollution, and document port waste management models to enable scaling up in other Philippine and global ports.
To achieve these objectives, the project will work with a wide range of stakeholders such as port authorities, city officials, and businesses. Through the project, innovative solutions for waste management in ports will be developed and local communities will be involved.
During the launch, Norway’s Ambassador to the Philippines Bjørn Jahnsen presented the opening remarks and highlighted the importance of combating marine plastic litter to ocean industries. The Norwegian Embassy in Manila also points out that the Shipping industry is important to both Norway and the Philippines and is a pillar of the bilateral relations of the two countries.
