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Arab News
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Manila mayor launches weekly clean-up drive to deal with city's garbage crisis
MANILA: Manila, one of the world's most densely-populated cities, launched a weekly clean-up initiative on Saturday to address its worsening garbage problem, in the same week that a state of emergency was declared in the Philippine capital due to piles of uncollected rubbish. For weeks, garbage has been causing problems in the city, with roads becoming impassable for cars in some areas and the stench of rotting waste inescapable for Manila's two million residents. The reason behind the crisis was revealed on Monday, when Manila Mayor Francisco Domagoso assumed office: the capital's rubbish collection contractors had quit, claiming they were owed millions of dollars by the previous administration. 'Since the beginning of 2025, it was obvious that the garbage trucks weren't coming in regularly — unlike the year before,' Manila resident Sophie Escudero told Arab News on Saturday. 'Every time I (go out), the garbage is just way more than what I normally see.' By Tuesday, Domagoso had declared a state of health emergency and issued an executive order mandating 'every Saturday … as regular clean-up and de-clogging day throughout the city of Manila,' and highlighting the city's 'deteriorating sanitary conditions and worsening garbage collection problem' as a hazard to people's health and safety. Under the order, the city's Department of Public Services and the Department of Engineering and Public Works are directed to take part in the weekly, citywide clean-up drive. Residents are also 'strongly encouraged' to participate. 'I need everyone's cooperation—because together, we can make Manila great again,' Domagoso said on Friday. 'I humbly appeal to everyone: let's work together to lift our city up and make it a cleaner, more livable, and more peaceful place for our fellow citizens here in the nation's capital.' He also claimed that he could 'confidently say' the garbage crisis was '70 percent solved,' after joint efforts from city officials and having reached out to a former waste collection contractor for help. The emergency declaration also allowed his office to access 'more resources and exercise broader authority,' he said. Domagoso, a former teen idol also known by his screen name Isko Moreno, prioritized cleaning up the city's streets during his first stint as mayor from 2019 to 2022. He won the election in May with a promise to 'Make Manila Great Again.' 'The reason I voted for Isko was because, somehow, you could actually be proud that Manila was at least a bit clean (during his previous term in office). Because when (his successor, former Mayor Honey) Lacuna took over, I was so frustrated. In some streets, you couldn't even pass through,' Manila resident Malu Rongalerios told Arab News. 'Now, the improvement is huge. No joke.' Prior to this week, Rongalerios said garbage trucks had only been coming to his neighborhood once or twice a week. 'That's just not acceptable,' he said. 'We even segregate our trash. We make sure to take it out properly. To step out of your house and see trash everywhere? That's just too much.' On Saturday, city authorities across Manila were flushing the streets with water, hauling piles of garbage away, and de-clogging drains to comply with the executive order. The city's garbage crisis would have been preventable if 'waste reduction measures such as bans on single-use plastic and support for reusable packaging and refill systems were to be implemented,' claimed Marian Ledesma, a zero-waste campaigner with Greenpeace Philippines, who warned that Manila may face a similar crisis in the future if strict waste segregation from households and businesses is not enforced. 'Right now, collectors just dump everything into one truck,' Ledesma told Arab News. 'This poor collection practice of mixing waste doesn't (reward) the good habits of people who do segregate, and cities lose valuable resources because glass and other recyclables are thrown out, and food or organic waste that can be composted are mixed with other waste.'
Times
04-07-2025
- Climate
- Times
Seine finally opens for public swimming — but mind the rats
Parisians who are brave enough to take a plunge in the Seine as it opens for public swimming this weekend for the first time in a century will be reviving a once popular pastime. Swimming in the Seine became fashionable in the 17th century, when Parisians would bathe in the river, with canvas screens separating men's and women's areas. Paris banned swimming in the Seine in 1923 over concerns about water quality. After a €1.4 billion clean-up before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games last summer, which made it possible to hold some swimming races in the river, city officials have declared it safe. It may still look a little murky, but swimming will be allowed at three designated points in Paris: Bras Marie, Bras de Grenelle near the Eiffel Tower, and Bercy. They have been equipped with showers and lockers, and, with the exception of the Bras Marie site, changing cubicles. River swimming is a pet project of Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, who took a five-minute dip in the Seine herself before the Olympics and deemed the water 'exquisite'. 'Swimming in the Seine is a response to the aim of adapting to climate change,' the mayor said just before this week's heatwave. 'The more temperatures rise, the more we will have to find spaces where people can cool off. This is also about the quality of life.' The authorities say the three swimming areas will be closed if storms wash sewage or waste into the water, or if the currents are too strong. Several Olympic swimmers became ill with vomiting or diarrhoea after competing in open water races in the river, although it was never proved that exposure to the Seine water was to blame. 'The issue of discharges into the river from houseboats and barges has never been settled,' Jean-Pierre Lecoq, the conservative mayor of Paris's sixth arrondissement, told The Times. 'They empty their toilets and the water from their kitchens into the Seine. 'That may not amount to a huge problem, but there's definitely a lot of muck down there, and then there are the rats. The water's too dark to see what's underneath. Personally, I love swimming in the sea but I wouldn't go swimming in the Seine in Paris.' Many Parisians agree with him. 'Never ever would I swim in the Seine,' said Romain Verani, 35, who swims three times a week at a public pool. 'It's too hard to treat the water. The Seine is too big a river to clean effectively. I'd consider swimming in the Canal de l'Ourcq, which has been open for swimming for a few years, because it's more enclosed, like a big pool, so it's easier to filter.' Ninon Le Pennec, 28, said she would not trust the mayor's word that the river water was safe. 'It doesn't look very clean to me.' But Paul Rodier, also 28, was more amenable. 'I'm a bit worried about it but I'd still give it a go,' he said. 'After all, the authorities say it's been cleaned up.' Older Parisians recall with nostalgia how they used to swim in river water in the Deligny, a floating public pool on the left bank of the Seine, opposite what is now the Musée d'Orsay. It was a favourite haunt of the glitterati, attracting Hollywood stars such as Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Errol Flynn. Opinions were always divided, however, about the wisdom of bathing in untreated river water. In 1844, half a century after it opened, the Deligny's water was described as 'dirty, cloudy, often foul-smelling and unhealthy' by Eugène Briffault, one of the founders of Le Figaro newspaper. Filters were eventually installed in 1919 after swimmers complained of muddy deposits in the water. Thereafter the authorities claimed it was safe because the water was continually being replenished. Unfortunately, that also made the unheated pool bone-chillingly cold, although it did offer the advantage of not reeking of chlorine. Many were sad when the Deligny mysteriously sprang a leak and sank in 1993. As a new era begins, the mayor and her supporters are hoping that the sceptics will put aside their doubts and dive in.
RNZ News
04-07-2025
- Climate
- RNZ News
Tasman begins to regroup after Motupiko River bursts banks
Across the sodden Tasman district, with rain still falling, the clean-up continues. Almost every winter, a flood hits Quinney's Bush Camp, with the Motupiko River spilling into the back of the holiday park, while they are closed. Manager Andrew Quinney said he saw the forecast and did their usual flood prep last week, before hunkering down with his partner and their six-month-old baby, but this time, the water swept through the front of the property. "It did come up quickly," he said. "It was a good five minutes from almost nothing to probably shin deep and flowing quite fast. Andrew Quinney faces months of mahi to tidy up, after the Motupiko River flooded across his bush camp. Photo: RNZ/Tess Brunton "Then it just got worse and worse, to the point where it was almost a metre, probably in some parts, more than a metre high." Quinney tried to move their animals to higher ground, risking his life to protect their guinea pigs. The flood was the biggest he could remember, with the stream out front joining up with the river, after it breached its banks. For 24 hours, they were trapped on the property, with water to their doorway most of the time. Now they were facing a huge clean-up, with lots of damaged fences and equipment, debris and muck, but their campground bathrooms and kitchen were OK. "It's quite daunting, looking around and seeing all of the damage, and all of the mess you need to clean up." Quinney said they were fortunate to have insurance, as he expected it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up and hoped to get some contractors to help ease the load. They aimed to open as usual on Labour Weekend. "We have had a lot of damage here in the campground, but I don't want people to forget that it's the whole valley," he said. "The whole valley's been destroyed. "Everyone in the valley's experienced loss, experienced damage and we've all got a lot of work to clean up." Nearby in the Korere Tophouse Valley, Tarsh and Daniel Newport's farm was inundated with water, and they lost chunks of their land to the Motupiko River. They expected more than 100mm of rain, but they got more than 250mm in less than two days. "You know, when you can hear [the river] from your house, which is probably half a kilometre away, when you hear boulders bowling down the river, you know there's a big volume of water and you certainly don't get much sleep," Daniel Newport said. Daniel Newport surveys the damage to his farm on the banks of the Motupiko River. Photo: RNZ/Mark Papalii The flooded river not only scoured out their paddocks in several places, but it washed away 200 tonnes of rock, installed recently by the council for river protection. The couple had experienced floods before, but nothing like this. They were cut off for about three days and Civil Defence was unable to check in on them for almost a week. "We'd seen the river come into our property in places we hadn't seen before, and it was quite deep already and we had damage to our gullies, so that's our hill access," Tarsh Newport said. "The second day, the damage and the amount of land we lost was just mind-boggling really." Korere Tophouse Valley farmers Tarsh and Daniel Newport had land wiped out by flood. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Along with losing land to the river, the floodwaters wiped out access to the half of the Newport farm in the hills, paddocks were covered in rocks, and some fences were missing or damaged. They were grateful their home was unscathed and they didn't lose any stock, and said it would be a case of chipping away at the recovery work. "Luckily, it's a time of year when dairy farmers aren't quite calving and milking cows yet, or not quite lambing, so that's fortunate from that respect," Daniel said. "You've just got to count your blessings, look for the positive things and take care of your neighbours." In Tapawera's main street, Mackenzie Laurie has served up hot drinks and food for residents from her coffee cart, and hearing how they have been affected. Mackenzie Laurie has heard many of the stories from people struggling with storm damage. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii "I'm seeing broken people come in here, because their whole yard and garden is just mud and rocks and sand now. It's awful actually. "All along the side of the river, the whole river just burst its banks and spread all down the main road. It lifted bits of road like pieces of paper, so much is destroyed." Tapawera Campground manager Julie Jacobson said the flooding a week ago caused sewage problems and the town was still contending with a boil water notice. Julie Jacobson and Aaron Ray are among those still contending with a boil water notice. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii "The toilet waste pipes bubbled up with water, backing up from the river, so water was just pouring out of actual piping to the sewage treatment plant, which is just across the road over there." The campground itself, which had 14 people staying when the heavy rain hit, was saved from worse flooding by the Great Taste Trail, which was atop a bank that ran between the camp and the Motueka River. "If it hadn't have been there, we would have been underwater." At the local community centre and op shop, Della Webby has worked non-stop for the past week to co-ordinate the flood relief. She works part-time as a community connector for Tapawera Connect, but after the flooding, she has become a point of contact for those in need of help. "I've just been here taking calls from people who need help and people offering it, and just trying to get help to where it's needed the most." She said everyone in the small town, which had around of about 350 residents was affected in some way. "There's obviously the farmers who have been devastated, losing their fencing, losing hectares of their paddocks, changing rivers, but there's a lot of people living in cabins and tiny homes and small dwellings that have been inundated. Tapawera Connect's Dalla Webby: "It's hitting home what's happened to them." Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii "They are the ones I am trying to hep the most and the some of the locals who have had the river through their houses." Webby said she still heard from people in the surrounding valleys, who lived without internet and cell phones, and only had landlines, which in some cases had been wiped out by flooding, so she would make sure their details were passed on to Civil Defence. "It's just really emotional," she said. "A lot of people have been running on adrenaline through this time, so I'm getting more calls now where people are really upset and feeling the strain. "It's hitting home what's happened to them." She said more wellbeing support was needed now than there had been and she was doing everything she could to make sure that those needing help were getting it. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
LBCI
01-07-2025
- Climate
- LBCI
France-Italy train suspended after storms: Operator
Train travel between France and Italy is suspended for "at least several days" after violent storms earlier in the week, French national operator SNCF said Tuesday. The storms on Monday in southeastern France have forced a clean-up operation during which SNCF will check there has been no damage to tracks on the Paris-Milan high-speed line, which would prolong the closure, it said. AFP
The Independent
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Glastonbury Festival revellers head home as Worthy Farm clean-up begins
A major clean-up operation has commenced at Glastonbury Festival to transform the site from a temporary city of 200,000 music fans back into a Somerset dairy farm. Glastonbury will not return in 2026, entering a fallow year to allow the ground to recover before the next event takes place in 2027, with organiser Emily Eavis planning improvements. Police are assessing performances by punk duo Bob Vylan and Irish rap trio Kneecap after controversial chants and calls were made during their sets. Surprise appearances included Lorde, Lewis Capaldi, Pulp, and Haim, while headliners featured The 1975, Neil Young, and Charli XCX. Sir Rod Stewart performed the Sunday legends slot, joined by Ronnie Wood, Lulu, and Mick Hucknall, and Olivia Rodrigo closed the Pyramid Stage with a guest appearance from Robert Smith of The Cure.
